Individual therapy

Individual therapy is the most searched-for and least understood format. It isn't reserved for people "in crisis". Most patients arrive functional from the outside — they go to work, have relationships, pay the bills — and exhausted on the inside.

The reasons that bring people most often: anxiety that no longer lets up, a mood that has been flat for months, professional burnout, a breakup, a loss, a decision the next decade depends on. Sometimes the reason is vaguer — "I don't recognise myself" — and it is just as valid.

You don't need a diagnosis to start. You need an hour a week and a willingness to be honest in a space where you don't have to protect anyone's feelings.

You work with the same therapist, usually weekly, in 50-minute sessions. The first two or three are assessment: the therapist takes in your history, your context and what you want changed. By the end of that stage you should have a clear answer to "what are we working on and roughly how long".

Then comes the work itself, and its shape depends on the method. In CBT you'll have homework and concrete tools. In psychodynamic therapy you'll explore patterns that repeat. Both are legitimate; what matters is that you understand why you're doing what you're doing.

The rhythm thins out as things stabilise — from weekly to fortnightly, then monthly. Ending therapy is a planned stage, not a disappearance.