Mental Health

Through psychotherapy you can learn to identify and shift unhelpful thought patterns, to find more helpful ways to view yourself, others or life problems. 

You can learn to be kinder towards yourself, to manage painful emotions and to direct your actions towards more meaningful and beneficial ends. 

Depression can be experienced in a mild form or can be very severe or long lasting, and can involve feelings of sadness, emptiness, irritability, hopelessness, worthlessness, excessive guilt or difficulty experiencing pleasure. 

There can be significant changes in weight and sleeping patterns, as well as fatigue and loss of motivation.

Sometimes it can feel like anxiety and fear are taking over your life. Anxiety is the expectation that something will go wrong, and it can be hard to switch your mind off from worrying. Fear involves the activation of your “fight or flight response”. Some people have specific fears associated with certain animals, medical procedures, being in enclosed or open spaces, being outside the home, using public transport, standing in line or being in a crowd. Social anxiety is a specific fear of being negatively judged in social situations.  Some people experience panic attacks which can be overwhelming and can feel like you are losing control, going crazy or even dying.

A certain amount of stress can help energise you to meet life demands, but excessive stress can reduce your capacity to perform effectively at work or in day-to-day living, and can impact on relationships and your physical health. After extended periods of high stress it can become increasingly hard to wind down and you may end up feeling exhausted or “burnt out”. Stress can cause difficulty sleeping or turning to alcohol, drugs, overeating or other unhealthy ways of coping. Stress can develop after challenging life events like bereavement, relationship break-up, job loss, trauma or injury or may result from a build-up of pressure in work or family life.

Anger is a very human emotion. But sometimes anger can result in words and actions that hurt other people. 

Learning to manage your anger can help improve your relationships and your health and wellbeing.

Low self-esteem can make it hard to cope with life’s frustrations and disappointments. With low self-esteem you can feel excessive fear, anger, sadness, guilt, shame or inferiority. You may experience a deep-seated feeling of being unlovable, unworthy and be preoccupied by how others respond to you. With low self-esteem you can be intensely self-critical or feel a need to prove yourself. You may have difficulty dealing with feelings of vulnerability or emptiness or be highly sensitive to criticism. Maintaining healthy relationships can be difficult whether with intimate partners, close friends or family.

Some people may have experienced trauma earlier in life, for example through childhood sexual abuse or witnessing family violence while growing up. Some people may have had recent traumatic experiences. Sometimes people can turn to alcohol or drugs or other unhealthy ways of trying to cope with trauma.

Losing someone you love is very, very hard. You can find yourself feeling very alone even though the world is full of people, and even when close friends and family are trying to help.

Maggie draws from a range of evidence-based psychotherapies, integrating and tailoring an approach to meet your specific needs and preferences. Therapy may be brief and focused or longer term depending on the difficulties being experienced and the outcomes you want to achieve. Her approaches include: