Resolved! Counselling for Children in Oxford: here to help your child to thrive.

‘Fantastic’ might be a little strong. Still, I’m here to help.

Some months ago a little girl ran up to me (once out of her parent’s car) and screamed at the top of her voice: “Paul, Paul, I’m not scared of  X anymore!” I can’t tell you what ‘X’ was, for fear of breaking confidentiality. I can’t even tell you, for certain and for the same reasons, whether it was a girl, but I can tell you how proud I felt in that moment. That child had overcome her fears and had achieved her goal.

There are few things more wonderful than the grin of a young child who feels, at that moment, proud of what they have achieved. I was proud of this child, she was proud and so were her parents. It was a lovely moment and it’s why I trained so hard in order to be able to work with children of that age.

I’m fully insured, DBS checked and am supervised on a regular basis in order to ensure that my child and adolescent clients receive the best possible therapeutic care. If your child is ready to make changes happen then I am here to help them do just that.

I’m also here to help them to achieve their goals in a reasonable time frame. As an adult psychotherapist I largely worked to a brief therapy model, working to achieve the best results in the quickest possible time. Sometimes it didn’t work out that way and that was fine, since I am also trained in delivering longer-term therapy. Sometimes the best results take time and sometimes clients simply need to be heard, to be listened to, before they can move on. Everybody processes things at their own speed.

Sometimes people need more than space and understanding

It’s my view that some models of child psychotherapy can be too permissive and work as if with an arm tied behind their backs. Yes, the child client may come to their goal after two years – all by themselves – but if I know of an intervention which could help , more quickly, then that’s what I’ll offer. Families and children who come to see me need to see change and they need it as quickly as is reasonably possible. That doesn’t have to mean being slapdash or dictatorial. It simply means being willing to teach a client as well as to simply be with them.

I have worked with a great many adolescents and teenagers in Oxford and elsewhere, helping them to harness their strengths, forgive their failures, overcome their fears and defeat self-doubt. I’m now doing the same with children of ten years and below.

I’ve been trained to use all manner of interventions to help children to become more rounded, versatile, resilient and happier individuals. Sometimes that will involve play therapy. Sometimes it will involve working together in sand. It might entail music, games, art, mindfulness, hypnosis or even simply the simple art of talking things through. I have learned to integrate my adult therapies of mindfulness, hypnosis and psychotherapy together with my newer approaches more appropriate for children of younger ages.

Working together we shall create a therapeutic approach which suits your particular child. That’s the great thing about integration, it means never having to be tethered to one particular theory or approach.