Individual psychotherapy in English
Psychotherapy can help when thoughts, emotions or patterns of behaviour begin to interfere with everyday life, relationships, work or the way you feel about yourself.
I work mainly with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), together with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and other contemporary cognitive and behavioural approaches.
The aim is not simply to reduce symptoms, but to understand what is happening, what may be maintaining the difficulty and what could help you respond differently.
How CBT and ACT can help
CBT looks at the relationships between thoughts, emotions, physical reactions and behaviour.
A central part of the work is identifying the patterns that keep a difficulty going. For example, avoidance may reduce anxiety in the short term while making it stronger over time, or repeated attempts to control difficult thoughts may end up giving them even more attention.
Once we understand these patterns more clearly, we can begin to test different ways of responding and develop strategies that are useful in everyday life.
ACT adds a complementary perspective. It focuses on psychological flexibility: learning to make room for difficult thoughts and emotions when they cannot simply be removed, while continuing to act in ways that are consistent with what matters to you.
What therapy is like
Therapy has structure, but it is not a fixed programme.
In the first sessions, we develop a shared understanding of what brings you to therapy, how the difficulty affects your life and what may be maintaining it. From there, we agree on areas of focus and regularly review whether the work is helping.
Depending on what we are working on, sessions may include exploring thoughts and beliefs, changing behavioural patterns, approaching situations you have been avoiding, practising ways of responding to difficult emotions or trying exercises between sessions.
The process is collaborative and adjusted as we learn more about what is useful for you.
What may be useful to know
Do I need to know exactly what I want to work on before starting?
No. Some people begin therapy with a very clear problem or goal. Others know that something is not working but are not yet sure how to describe it. The first sessions can help us understand the difficulty more clearly and decide together what would be useful to focus on.
Will we only focus on the present?
CBT pays close attention to what is happening in your life now, because this is where many patterns can be observed and changed. That does not mean the past is ignored. Earlier experiences can be important when they help us understand how certain beliefs, expectations or ways of coping developed and why they still affect you today.
Is CBT only about changing negative thoughts?
No. Cognitive work is one part of CBT, but therapy also involves behaviour, emotions, physical responses, relationships and the situations in which difficulties occur. Sometimes change comes from looking at a thought differently. At other times, it comes from doing something differently, approaching what has been avoided or learning to tolerate an emotion without reacting to it automatically.
Sessions
- Duration
- 50 minutes
- Format
- In person in Bucharest or online
The first sessions focus on understanding what brings you to therapy and developing an initial picture of the difficulty. As therapy progresses, the focus can change in response to what we learn, what is happening in your life and what proves most useful in practice.
Get in touch about psychotherapy
Send a short message about what you are looking for, and I will reply with the next practical step.