Dr Bahareh Haghighat-Khah

Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.

There are times in our lives when we feel helpless and overwhelmed and life can feel unmanageable and chaotic.  This is a time when we need to reach out and speak with someone in confidence, who is able to empathise, listen and help us to understand what may be happening for us.  A person who can explore with us our thoughts, feelings and general anxieties about our past or present issues.  This can be in relation to our behaviour, relationships, our health, work and social situations.

Many of us find it quite difficult and even overwhelming to understand on our own how we feel, what we would need to do and how to move forward.  This is a time when counselling and psychotherapy can be helpful.  A space where we can explore our experience and feelings in confidence, without judgement and at total ease with a trained professional.

Often our past history or present difficulties can get in the way of us being able to enjoy our life fully.  Traumatic events can stop us from progressing forward. The loss of a loved one can feel devastating and overwhelming. Unable to move on, we find ourselves in a state of constant grief and unable to function. Relationships become chaotic, unfulfilling and at times destructive. We may become unwell both physically and mentally and find everyday life challenging and at times unbearable.  Therapy can help us to begin to understand and unravel what can feel like an impossible and hopeless situation.

In both my personal and professional experience I have found that when we don’t deal with or even try to understand our feelings, thoughts and behaviours, we can often find ourselves in very difficult and dark places.  This often leads to a manifestation of our difficulties, both mentally and physically, through our everyday lives.  We can start to feel mentally and emotionally unwell, exhibiting constant low mood, unexplainable anxiety, uncontrollable anger, depression and obsessive behaviours. We can find ourselves physically ill with complaints such as stress, panic attacks, migraines, aches and pains and other debilitating bodily symptoms.

And then there are those of us who with or without awareness turn to self-medication and various ways of forgetting and not dealing with the emotional turmoil in our life.  We turn to food and other substances such as drugs and alcohol for comfort and escapism.  We use food as a way of control by eating very little or too much.  There are other addictions too, such as work, education, gambling, sex, pornography, gaming and of course co-dependent relationships - where we avoid our problems by hiding and getting lost in other people’s lives and their problems.  All are efforts to hide and get away from the pain and suffering we are faced with but often to no avail.  Though such ways may provide temporary relief we soon find ourselves in a hopeless place once again.

'Anytime you're feeling distracted, overwhelmed, stressed or overshadowed, there's a tendency to escape. The state of denial is an escape. Distracting yourself through overwork is an escape. Altering your mind with drugs and alcohol is an escape. What they all have in common is absence of awareness. You numb or distract yourself under the false belief that unawareness will help you, while being too aware will only increase your pain. In reality, the opposite is true. Awareness heals because awareness is the only thing that is truly whole and healing is fundamentally a return to wholeness'. Deepak Chopra

How can I help

My training as an integrative psychotherapist allows me to use different modalities, thoughts, ideas and ways of exploring and understanding with you, your situation.  I will be focusing with you on the here and now and what may be your experience of where you are today, as well as bringing forward and becoming more aware of your past experiences and relationships, that could be affecting your life today.  I will help you to look within and make links and better understand patterns that may have been in place for many years, affecting your personal life, work life, relationships and general wellbeing.

I believe that the most important part of therapy is my relationship with you as my client; the trust, faith, bond and understanding within the therapy room can be the most healing and therapeutic part of the process.  It is this unexplainable and inaccessible therapeutic alliance that is the cornerstone of work between me and you and it is this experience that helps many heal and move forward in life.

I feel that it is important for you to become your own therapist and so my focus will be to help you in a non-directive yet questioning and explorative way.  Empowering you to see what may be happening for you and how you can move forward.  To help you become more curious about your feelings, thoughts, behaviours, motives, decisions, and more importantly the way you experience life.

I provide both short and long term therapy.  Short term can be anything from 6 sessions and longer term therapy can carry on for a number of years.  This is very individual and very much depends on the issues and the need of the client and will be discussed within the sessions.  There will be no contract between us as to how many sessions we have, only your genuine commitment and determination to engage with the therapy process.

Students

I provide counselling for students studying Counselling and Psychotherapy who need to be in therapy as part of their professional development.  As a previous student, I am fully aware of the training and the process which you may be going through and can understand and empathise with the financial and emotional investment.

As well as the above I also deal with a variety of other issues, some of which I have listed below.

• Identity
• Loss
• Relationships and separation
• Bereavement
• Separation and Divorce
• Pet loss
• Social Anxiety
• Childhood abuse
• War trauma
• Cultural issues
• Self esteem issues
• Self confidence issues
• Pain management

My current fees are:

Initial Assessment online or face to face : £120 - One hour

Follow up face to face : £120 - 50 minutes

Follow up online : £90 - £120 - 50 minutes

The initial session will provide a space and an opportunity for you to talk in depth about what has led you to come to therapy, discussing current issues and past history. It is also an opportunity for you to ask any questions you may have and a plan on how we can go forward. You are welcome to call me before for a confidential discussion on how I can support you with your current situation. Following this, I'd be happy to offer you an initial consultation.

Please note fees are payable by cash or bank transfer .  

All psychotherapeutic practice is carried out in line with UKCP membership requirements. I receive professional supervision for my work and abide by the ethical principles of UKCP.


http://www.ukcp.org.uk/16/information/what-is-psychotherapy/ethical-principles-and-code-of-professional-conduct

Memberships

• Accredited member of United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
• Member of The Universities Psychotherapy and Counselling Association (UPCA) which is an Institutional member of United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)