What is the difference between counselling and psychotherapy?

Although the term ‘therapist’ is used to include counsellors and psychotherapists you may be wondering about the difference between them. There is overlap between the two and similar skills are used in both approaches.

Both are enriching and help you to cope with problems in a more effective way.

• Counselling can be short term (weeks or months), often focussing on a specific problem
• Psychotherapy involves in-depth exploration of your past experiences in order to make sense of your present life circumstances. It also involves understanding underlying patterns and how they influence current relationships. A longer period of reflection is required to work through this process