Ian Pittaway, UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist

Ian Pittaway

Stourbridge DY8
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Ian Pittaway, UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist

Ian Pittaway

Stourbridge DY8
Email Therapist
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My Approach

I often see a process of a client moving from being stuck, then processing together to understand how the difficulty arose, to then having the clarity to remove the blocks to growth and gain insight about what is needed to move forward. For me, being part of this process never ceases to be a privilege.

Often, talking and reflecting together is enough. For those who need or prefer more, I work with charts, models, postcards, and any creative suggestions which may arise from our work together.

On my website https://ianpittawaytherapy.uk you will find articles and videos about issues in psychotherapy and counselling. They are intended for the general reader and viewer, and I hope give a flavour of my approach to working with issues you may present to me.

On taking that difficult first step, please be assured of a warm welcome.

About Me

When your life is difficult, I offer non-judgemental compassion and a space to be heard. I work with all emotional difficulties, and have a special interest in trauma: post traumatic stress, depression, anxiety and bereavement.

I have been involved in self-development and creative insight in educational, artistic and psychotherapeutic contexts. My psychotherapeutic practise is integrative, which means I use a mix of approaches (including transactional analysis, object relations, person centred therapy and self-psychology). This gives me a broad range of therapeutic viewpoints to draw on, as is appropriate at any given time with any individual person.

I work with

  • Couples
  • Individuals

Special Interests

Like all UKCP registered psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors I can work with a wide range of issues, but here are some areas in which I have a special interest or additional experience.

It is my therapeutic experience that addiction to a substance such as alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, or to an activity such as gambling, promiscuity, affairs, unfaithfulness, or self-harm, is a way of avoiding oneself: it is to hide emotional difficulties with thrill-seeking or with numbness that makes the everyday disappear. There are therefore three therapeutic issues with addiction: how to reduce and stop the avoidant activity; at the same time, explore the issues that led to addiction; and together build the emotional resources to manage and enjoy the everyday.
Anxiety is often spoken of today as a diagnosis, but of course anxiety is a response, a symptom: we are anxious *about* something. Our role in therapy is to gently and sensitively uncover the emotional roots, the origin story, so we can locate the support you needed then and need now to grow in emotional skill and confidence.
We tend to think of grief and bereavement as something we experience only when someone close to us has died, but the bereavement process can happen with any deep and significant loss that we have not chosen: the death of a person, the end of a relationship, significant loss of health, the loss of a limb, the end of a career, etc. We become stuck in grief when we cannot accept or adapt to the new reality. Therapeutically, growing beyond any grief means learning to value and hold dear what we had in the past, while living in the present and adapting appropriately and realistically to the changed situation.
Being part of a couple is the most significant relationship we can have, so when it is threatened by arguments and misunderstandings, differences in values, or unfaithfulness, it strikes at the heart of the harmony and love we all crave. We are more likely to find what we need, and receive the love we desire, when we have a good understanding of ourselves, knowing what drives us to seek our own particular version of love in another person. The key themes when working with couples are therefore one's expectations of the other, shared and non-shared values, and good communication.
Once trauma-based habits of thought and emotion are established, they become so accepted and normal that they are invisible to us. Thus issues of trauma such as generalised anxiety and panic, phobias, loneliness, feeling constantly sad, low self-esteem, and persistent relationship issues, seem so intractable. This is where the skill of a therapist becomes important, noticing the patterns in the way a face or a hand moves, or a voice changes, or a sentence always trails off at a certain point, or that some emotions are allowed and others forbidden. All such details are potential clues about established processes, and it is crucial that they are presented back to the client in a caring, therapeutic way, when the client is open, ready and able to hear and respond. Part of the role of the skilled therapist is to assist the client in self-knowledge and self-understanding, so that the client’s difficult history is not relived in the daily present tense. This is the potential that counselling and psychotherapy offers: turning the blighted past from a present-day emotional straight-jacket into a skin that can be shed.

Types of Therapies Offered

  • Integrative Psychotherapist

What I can help with

  • Abuse
  • Addiction
  • Age-related Issues
  • Anger Management
  • Anxiety
  • Autism
  • Bereavement
  • Bullying
  • Cancer
  • Chronic Illness
  • Couple Issues
  • Depression
  • Divorce
  • Domestic Violence
  • Employment Difficulties
  • Family
  • Health-related Issues
  • Infertility
  • Mental Health Issues
  • Obsessions
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
  • Online Counselling
  • Parents
  • Physical Abuse
  • Post-Traumatic Stress
  • Prescribed Drug Dependence
  • Private Practice Issues
  • Relationships
  • Separation
  • Sex Offenders
  • Sex Problems
  • Sexual Abuse
  • Step Families
  • Stress
  • Suicide
  • Telephone Counselling
  • Terminal Illness
  • Those at Risk of Sexual Offending
  • Trauma

Types of sessions

  • Face to Face - Long Term
  • Face to Face - Short Term
  • Online Therapy
  • Telephone Therapy

Stourbridge Office


Stourbridge DY8
England

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Cost:

£50

UKCP College

  • Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy College (HIPC)
Ian Pittaway

Ian Pittaway

Stourbridge DY8
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020 7014 9955

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