Stuart Griffin

Postgraduate Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy from the Welsh Psychotherapy Partnership gaining clinical accreditation with UKCP (United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy).

Current Availability: Space for new clients Sept 2023

I offer short term counselling, longer term psychotherapy and couples therapy in Swansea and the surrounding areas during the working day and in the early evening.

About Counselling and Psychotherapy

I find that clients will often comment on how good it is just to talk. Talking helps us to make sense of difficult issues, release the burden of secrets that weigh us down and helps to re-establish trust and confidence in being in relationship with others.

Psychotherapy is a form of counselling which can go into more depth into issues if you choose to (you would always lead the process). Psychotherapists undergo longer training (although some counsellors have extensive continuing professional training too) which equips them to explore issues in greater depth. Extensive personal therapy (4 years minimum) is an essential part of training and this enables psychotherapists to have insight into complicated mental and emotional processes and have faith in the ability of psychotherapy to help.

My approach as a therapist

I combine compassion, empathic listening skills and perceptive clinical thinking. I take great care to create a space in which you feel safe enough to share what you need to. I would always follow your lead (you are the expert about your life) and I would apply my experience, skills and theoretical training to support you in finding a way through your difficulties.

Most importantly, I believe in bringing my personality into the therapy room and being real with you. I do not hide behind a mask. Therapy can be painful, cathartic, funny, joyous, exciting and I would meet you in the full range of emotional states.

Psychotherapy research shows that it is the quality of relationship that heals. We are social animals born into relationship yet they are often so challenging. A psychotherapeutic relationship can illuminate the unhelpful patterns that complicate your relationships with others and provide an opportunity to try out new ways of relating.

Change starts in the here and now and we would work here.

I would hope that we can end our sessions at a point when you feel that you enjoy greater self-awareness and exercise more choice about how you live your life.

Theoretical approach

I am training as an integrative therapist to make the most of the many different but overlapping approaches to therapy. I have a particular interest in Gestalt therapy, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, and Transactional Analysis. I also draw on motivational interviewing and coaching skills to help support change. Neuroscience is revealing more and more about how our brains function and how our mind and brain interacts (and also provides evidence for the effectiveness of psychotherapy) and I will share the latest insights with you as appropriate.

Couples Therapy

The most important relationship in couples therapy is the couple. Therapy provides a more facilitative role, exploring current impasses in communication and affection in the context of historical patterns, both for the relationship and each partner. By exploring each partners relational needs and how they are or are not currently being met, couples therapy can create the possibility of individual growth as well as maturation of the relationship.

Training and experience

I have completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy from the Welsh Psychotherapy Partnership gaining clinical accreditation with UKCP (United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy).

I started training as a counsellor in 2007, obtaining a certificate in counselling from the University of West of England in 2009. I subsequently completed training in group analysis with the IGA. I decided to train as a psychotherapist because I believe that the depth of training involved is important in order to work with people effectively and at depth.

Since 2007 I have worked as a trainer on group psycho-education courses using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, a motivational interviewer on a trail run by Cardiff University and as a mental health mentor for students at Swansea University. I have completed psychotherapy placements at Swansea University Wellbeing Services and the NHS Psychological Therapies team in Swansea.

I have experience with working with a range of issues, including;

  • Post-traumatic stress
  • Anger issues
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Drug and alcohol addiction
  • Early childhood trauma
  • Identity and gender identity
  • Obsessive compulsive thinking and disorders
  • Traumatic and challenging life events
  • Relationship issues, including pregnancy and childbirth related issues for men and women
  • Bereavement and Loss

Testimonials

I do not ask for feedback but some people offer it voluntarily. This is what one client wrote in a card when she finished the course of therapy, printed here with her permission.

I can’t thank you enough for the work you have done with me in our sessions. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be about to embark on this new adventure. I can’t express how much things have changed for me since starting our sessions and I can only attribute it to your marvellous, caring and extremely perceptive guidance’

Amy

‘I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank you again for the giving me the very effective therapeutic space at a time when it was much needed. It has helped me a lot.’

Eleanor

Practicalities

You might have got a sense of me from the words above but the best way to find out if you would like us to work together would be to get in touch by phone or email for a conversation.

I offer an initial session without commitment to find out whether we could work together. If you do not wish to continue or if I refer you to another practitioner I would not ask you to pay.

All sessions are confidential and I subscribe to the UKCP code of ethics.

I offer 50-minute sessions on a sliding scale, from £40 to £60. Most people pay £50 but I ask for a higher fee from higher tax rate tax payers so that I can offer a discount to people on low or no incomes. Couples sessions are £75 for an hour and a quarter.

I am based in Uplands Crescent, Swansea