All feelings and mental experiences are normal. Though sometimes we experience them intensely or they get out of balance. When our inner functioning is at its optimum and we effectively use all of our innate potential, in our work and the rest of our life, we are at our peak “mental wellness.”

Mental wellness shows itself when we demonstrate:

• awareness of our own emotions and their causes
• initiative
• accepting change and the unknown
• purposeful attention
• creativity
• inner motivation
• having insights
• self-possession.

These are all inner abilities that can be developed. You can improve your mental wellness with a proactive approach – just like going to the gym.

Therapy works in three key ways:

1. Insight:

The therapist is a neutral observer who helps us understand more about ourselves.

As we generate awareness of the different aspects of our self, how they conflict and how they interpret and respond to reality, the greater degree of control and choice we develop and the less anxious we feel.

Through therapy, we gain knowledge of our internal workings, opening up more awareness and more options.

2. Experience:

Our experience shapes our brain – creating patterns of thoughts, emotions and behaviours that stick.

Our family experiences and childhood environment imprint strongly – we had to adapt to it because we were our most vulnerable and dependant.

The therapist provides a supportive, validating and often novel experience.

3. Relationship:

Relationships are imperative to our wellbeing – humans are social beings.

Our early relationships formed our blueprint for relating: we then repeat these patterns of relating in our adult lives.

The therapeutic relationship between you and your therapist offers a chance to explore, create and practice new ways of relating.

Our therapists are trained in a range of approaches. We focus on offering Transactional Analysis (“TA”) and psychotherapeutic counselling – because research shows it works.

TA is one of the cornerstones of modern psychology – an internationally recognised model and training that is theoretically sound, rigorous and highly effective.

You can read more about the different approaches here. The most common are “integrative” (i.e. a mix), psychodynamic, person-centred, psychoanalytic and cognitive behavioural. Many therapists integrate a range of approaches – and we’ve done the vetting so you don’t have to.

The most important thing is that you choose the person who you feel comfortable working with and who you feel will help you get to where you want to be. You are the best judge of who you want to work with.

The first step is to use our matching tool and then have a chat and whilst doing so simply ask yourself – ‘Can I talk to this person?’  Your first session is only £25 to allow you to “shop around” at a low cost.

Because TA is a theory of the entire self, we can help with a wide range of personal challenges:

• Relationships: finding and maintaining love
• Friendships: mutually satisfying friendships
• Parenting: breaking unhelpful habits and learning to become a “good enough” parent
• Body and addictions: exploring our inner drives, conflicts and the underlying causes to help us care for our bodies and release us from compulsions.
• Work: recognising our talents and finding satisfaction in our work and relationships with colleagues
• Sex and sexuality: finding acceptance, connection and enjoyment from our sexual self.

Our therapists’ training is focussed on TA and psychotherapeutic methods and theory to offer you one of the most effective processes currently available.

TA offers a systemic approach to growth and change at professional and personal levels, in teams and groups, and for the whole organisation.

You’ll gain clarity and insight, understanding the links between human needs and behaviours and the ways that your organisation is effective or ineffective in solving its problems and serving your customers.

Our practice and application of Transactional Analysis to your business helps enable:

• leadership skill and competence

• personal development at all levels – from the individual, team, department and organisation.

• systemic organisational awareness
• improved interpersonal relationships to improve performance and productivity

• solutions-focussed problem solving
• conflict resolution
• increased team performance
• effective communications
• self awareness and personal impact.

TA helps us analyse and change…

• the dynamics of how groups work together
• the role and performance of individuals within the groups
• the dynamics of power structures and how power flows through an organisation to empower groups and individuals
• organisational culture to improve efficiency, harmony, productivity and creativity.

Through our coaching, therapy, leadership development and customised workshops, we can help your organisation grow by focussing on the growth of the people working within it.

Decades of research has shown that it does.

Importantly, whilst medication can be necessary and offers relief, psychotherapy has been shown to create sustainable change and improvement.

28% of the British population talk to a therapist at some point. Therapy is not new. “Talking cures” have been around for a century (or millennia, depending how you look at it). Since 1900 modern techniques have been empirically developed and therapy continues to be increasingly popular and effective.

Therapy online is virtually the same as therapy in person in the same room as your therapist. The methodologies used are the same.

There are some key differences, however, in delivery method:

• It can be disinhibiting: there is evidence that talking to a professional online allows us to be more open.
• It’s very private: no being seen on the way to, from, or outside a therapy centre.
• It’s convenient: no travelling time to and from your therapist’s location.
• It’s comfortable: you choose where you talk, from the comfort of your own home, a private space or a location of your choice.
• It’s flexible: with The Circle Line, you choose when you have therapy, from first thing in the morning, lunchtime, late at night or at weekends.
• It can be anonymous: if you wish to talk without your camera on, you can.

Some say therapy online is less personal. Some say that the relationship between you and your therapist is less intimate. We say that is up to you. It is up to you how you use your session time, what you explore and if and when you want to find an in-person therapist instead. There is no right way, and there is a time and place for each medium. We are here to give you options.

This is totally up to you and what you want and expect to achieve. Some people are looking to do some short term work, some are committed to a longer process.

We would say that longer-term work tends to give more sustainable results and addresses our more enduring deeply ingrained patterns. We recommend having a series of at least 6 sessions with the same practitioner as a minimum.

Ultimately, it’s up to you.

We’ll match you with 3 people that our matching technology suggests are suitable for you. You can change practitioner any time if you feel the sessions aren’t working for you for whatever reason. You can also change your answers to the questions to get new suggested practitioners.

We would recommend talking to your practitioner about any concerns before you stop your sessions. Sometimes our reasons for wanting to stop or find someone else are all part of the learning experience and can tell us something about what is really going on for us.

As we always say… talking helps; do talk it through with your therapist.

The simple answer is the level and depth of the practitioner’s training. Here are some of the key differences between the two:

Our online Therapy Room will work with most modern browsers. We recommend Google Chrome! The technology we use is a standard part of most browsers, and the easiest way to check is to use this testing tool: 

http://test.webrtc.org

Allow access to microphone & camera, then simply press the green ‘Start’ button to start the test.

The tool will check whether your browser is capable of using our Therapy Room. Most are.