A warm welcome to Southdowns Psychotherapy

Empathic, Caring & Professional Mental Health Support in West Sussex

Welcome to Southdowns Psychotherapy and Counselling

Welcome to Southdowns Psychotherapy and Counselling, a private practice led by qualified therapist Alana Burton (Dip. TA Practice, MBACP) offering Psychotherapeutic Counselling.

Are you struggling with something you can’t seem fix alone? Or are you feeling overwhelmed by something that’s going on for you? Perhaps you have the feeling there’s something preventing you from leading an enjoyable and fulfilling life. If so, therapy can give you the emotional resilience and empathic support to help you explore what is going on for you.

I meet and talk to people, like you, who may be experiencing some sort of emotional distress. I believe that all emotional distress, no matter how complex or confusing it is, will make sense in the bigger picture of your life. My role as a therapist is to listen carefully to your story, to understand what it is like to be you and to help you make sense of that.

We will work together to explore what is going on for you as an individual person with a unique history and experience. We will create a coherent narrative to help you understand what is going on and figure out how to move forward. You won’t need to do this alone.

Working from locations in Washington (RH20) and at Bluecoat Sports in Horsham (Christ’s Hospital RH13), I work with anyone looking to improve the quality of their life and relationships. No matter your reasons for wanting to have therapy at a particular time in your life, in my experience we are all seeking to be more emotionally fulfilled and counselling can support us in achieving our goals.

Alana Burton
How can therapy help me

Therapy can help you navigate feelings, develop better behaviours and support you to relate to your thoughts differently so that you can live the life you want.

We don’t always have to be experiencing some sort of difficulty or trauma or going through a rough patch to benefit from therapy.

It will certainly be helpful at critical times but it is also a way to maintain healthy mental well-being. Therapy can help us achieve our potential, lead more engaging, enriched lives and to have more emotionally satisfying relationships both with ourselves and with others. It may be a time of crisis that brings us to therapy but many people find they get so much more than they anticipated!

Read more
What to expect

I am a warm and approachable therapist and I believe that the relationship between therapist and client is the most important aspect of successful work.

I offer a selection of daytime and evening appointments Monday – Friday depending on location and when you first get in touch I will ask which location is most suitable for you. Your therapy can be brief and short term or longer term work.

From then we will have an opportunity to explore what is going on for you at this point in your life. If appropriate, I offer a free 50 minute consultation to have the chance to talk further. During this time you can also ask me any questions and decide whether I am the right person for you and the journey together begins from there!

 

Read more
What happens in therapy?

Sessions are 50 minutes long and once we have agreed to work together, we will meet at the same time and place each week.

Starting therapy can be quite a daunting process and during our initial sessions we will have the chance to unpack the issues you want to bring in more depth and to work together to establish a working therapeutic relationship together.

I recommend that at the start of therapy you let me know the range of difficulties you may be facing and also about any misgivings or preconceptions you may have. This will give us the chance to work together to ensure they are addressed at the appropriate time and pace for you.

Read more

Your Therapy

Professional Qualifications

Qualified Psychotherapeutic Counsellor. Post-graduate Diploma in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy (Dip TA Practice) and Registered Member of the BACP (MBACP).

Convenient Locations

West Sussex locations include Washington (RH20) and Christ’s Hospital, Horsham. Washington is just off the A24 and within easy distance of Storrington, Steyning, Ashington, Thakeham, West Chilt, Worthing and surrounding villages. Daytime and evening appointments available.

Memberships and Insurance

I am fully insured and a member of professional bodies including BACP, UKCP, UKATA, UKCP.

From the blog

Understanding How Our Brain Impacts On Our Relationships

When considering your important relationships and thinking about what makes the good ones good and the bad ones bad there may be lots of things that come to mind. You may look at the beliefs and values you share with your partner, you may consider the similar interests you share with a best friend, or […]

read more
Depression: Coping With The Desire To Hide Away

When we have depression, we sometimes feel like we want to run away from everything and everyone. The urge to get away and leave everything behind can seem like an attractive option. We may feel incredibly low, overwhelmed by what’s going on for us, claustrophobic and trapped in ourselves. It’s usually the case however, that […]

read more
What Is The Therapeutic Alliance and Why Is It So Important

The therapeutic alliance is the key to successful psychotherapy. It is the strength of the bond and connection that can be built between you and your therapist over time. Without a trusting and respectful therapeutic alliance, no meaningful therapy can happen. So what is a good therapeutic alliance? The therapeutic relationship is multifaceted and varies […]

read more

What are Counselling and Psychotherapy?

Both counselling and psychotherapy come under an umbrella term of ‘talking therapies’. In many contexts they are used interchangeably and both refer to a fundamental process that involves talking through difficulties and issues and facilitating psychological change. Counselling constitutes a part of the wider psychotherapeutic process but you may also find that counsellors can work in a psychotherapeutic way. The principle difference lies in the length of relationship – counselling is broadly a more shorter term process and psychotherapy is offered on a longer term basis.

Counselling is a talking therapy involving a collaborative relationship between counsellor and client working towards the improved mental well-being of the client. A counsellor will be trained in counselling skills and theory in a safe and supportive environment. Counselling may be shorter term work and focuses on supporting an individual to better use resources they may already have.

Psychotherapy is similar to counselling in that it is also a talking therapy but it is usually done longer term and often goes into more depth than counselling. A focus in psychotherapy is a broader self-awareness of emotional issues and will seek to identify maladaptive patterns of thinking, feeling or behaviour that may be getting in the way of you leading a more satisfying life. Psychotherapy offers someone the chance to develop new personal resources.

Mindfulness is a fundamental life skill and involves the human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing and to be able to respond appropriately to what is going on for us or around us at any given moment.

Even though it is a fundamental and innate skill, we can often find ourselves not being particularly mindful on a daily basis, perhaps doing things on auto-pilot, unable to remember anything about a journey we’ve just done or oblivious to the sights and sounds around us as we walk to work, and so on. Being mindful can be learned. Mindfulness can be developed through awareness and via proven techniques.

When we are mindful we can reduce stress, gain insight and understanding about ourselves, increase our receptive capacity, increase awareness to our well-being and also that of others. When we practice Mindfulness we are training our brain to be more aware of what is going on around us, we are developing an increased capacity to be more present, not worrying about the past or anxious about the future. Mindfulness teaches us to be curious about the present and to be compassionate and warm towards it.

It is also possible for anyone to do.