Michel-Eric Cizniar

Counselling • Psychotherapy • Executive coaching • Couple therapy

Depression • Anxiety • Panic attacks • Relationships • Bereavement • Self-esteem • Abuse • Confidence • Sexuality and gender identity • Over/under-eating • Work, Education & Career • Guided self-exploration • Office politics and team management

Evening sessions 6:00pm -9:00pm • Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Sundays • Counselling / Coaching (1-12 sessions) or Psychotherapy (>12 sessions) • Lower fees for students • English / French • Card or BACS.

Remote (including couple therapy) or in-person (if you live in Nottingham). Please enquire!

Enquire / book session / request a referral pack : psy@cizconsult.com

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Welcome!

Hi! And a warm welcome to you. I guess that you are coming here looking for someone safe and supportive. Are you feeling low at the moment? Are you going through a hard time? Are you missing something, someone? Or on the contrary, are you having too much on your plate? Are you conflicted, split, feeling cornered? Is it a recent problem? Or one that has poisoned all your life and that you are finally decided to address? Whatever your reason, I would first like to congratulate for your courage. It's never easy to resort to asking for help.

You will find that it's good to be able to talk to a professional, empathic, non-judgemental person about things you wouldn't have felt comfortable discussing with a friend or your family! Talking therapy really works and I believe that counselling should be safe, professional and accessible.

• Safe: I am professionally insured, supervised (that is, I ask a fellow senior therapist to regularly critically assess my practice) and a member of the professional body BACP whose ethical codes put your welfare above any other considerations.
• Professional: I received a demanding training from one of the most prestigious psychotherapy training institutions in the UK and gained experience working with a variety of clients, from less than 12 sessions (counselling) to more than 100 each (psychotherapy), depending on the issues to address and the level of support needed.
• Accessible (financially): I offer an initial "taster" session for free. Thereafter, I only charge £50 per session or £45 for students.
• Accessible (in time): I am offering late evening slots until 6:00pm-9:00pm Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Sundays.
• Accessible (in location): I offer remote or in-person sessions (near the University of Nottingham and QMC, on several bus routes and the tram). Some of my student clients have continued therapy with me remotely back home after graduating! Please note that have a history of offering productive and hopefully successful remote couple therapy. Please enquire for the specific modalities

If you believe that safety, professionalism and accessibility are the prerequisites for you to be able to open to an empathic and non-judgemental therapist, please get in touch. Send me an e-mail and we should be able to start your first session in no time and address your needs.

How does it work?

• First, I suggest you contact me by e-mail (psy@cizconsult.com) or click the button "email me" above or leave me a message on my website (www.my-talking-therapy.com)
• For your own safety, I will send you an assessment questionnaire to prepare our initial "taster" session. Primum non nocere (First, do not harm).
• We will schedule our initial session which I offer free of charge (except couple therapy).
• During the initial session, I will listen to you and you will explain to me what is going on. At the end of the session, we will define what we are expecting of our work together. I will introduce you to the "therapeutic contract".
• You are absolutely not engaged at this stage, you can drop here if you like.
• Should you wish to continue, you will send back to me the therapeutic contract, which will formalise our working relationship together.
• Based on which, I will offer an appointment for our next session
• You will be able to pay by card or BACS, details will be in the invitation.
• I suggest you try to commit to 12 sessions initially since the trust relationship between the client and the therapist, so important for effective work, generally only kicks in at around session 6. But of course you are not locked in. (Note: couple therapy is generally shorter, 4 to 6 sessions give good results).
• Every 12 sessions, we have a review where we assess the progress and learnings so far and define the objectives of the 12 next sessions. During this time of reflection, you may be surprised by you progress!
• The idea is to put you in the driver seat of your therapy, with me as your instructor or your coach.

Conditions

• This is an Adult only service. You need to be 18 or over.
• For online video sessions, you need to have a good internet connection and a private space (bedroom, etc...) which allows confidentiality. You also need to be alone (1 to 1 person therapy). You cannot record the sessions. The therapy may not take place if the conditions are not fulfilled and payment will still be due.
• Therapy is confidential but not anonymous and abides by the same rules as the medical profession in terms of confidentiality. Details will be provided during the initial session.

We say that therapy is more effective if you do it in the the language that you swear in... This is why I am happy to provide therapy in French for those of my clients who are native French speakers: --

Psychothérapie en français • Soutien psychologique • Coaching d’organisation

Counselling, psychotherapy and executive coaching offered in native French.

Dépression • Anxiété • Crises d’angoisse • Problèmes relationnels • Deuil • Violence contre soi • Estime de soi • Sexualité • Confiance en soi • Vie sentimentale • Boulimie/anorexie • Travail, études & carrière • Découverte de soi • Difficultés d’équipes et d’encadrement

Pas de liste d’attente • 18h - 21h sur RV • En cabinet ou à distance: vidéo • Confidentiel • Action ciblée / coaching (1-12 sessions) ou travail approfondi (>12 sessions) • Tarifs progressifs • Tarif étudiant • Paiement par carte ou espèces.

Michel-Eric CIZNIAR, Français (bilingue anglais) originaire de Paris et installé à Nottingham • Qualified Transactional Analysis Psychotherapeutic Counsellor • Diplômé du Metanoia Institute de Londres • Membre de la British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), dont je respecte le code éthique • Assurance Professionnelle.

Renseignements / RV: psy@cizconsult.com

Individual therapy (50 minutes) - Remote or in-person:

• Initial "taster" session: graciously offered.
• Thereafter: £50
• Students: £45 thereafter

Couple therapy (50 minutes) - Remote (yes! I do offer remote couple therapy - please enquire) or in-person:

• £37.50/person (no taster session)

It has been well demonstrated since Freud that the fee is part of the therapy because it gives value to your work. Please think about it and make of your payment a conscious decision.

Therapeutic Modality

There are about 50 different therapeutic modalities around, which I understand is more than you need... and makes your choice difficult and confusing. The good news is: research shows that the modality comes only third as a predictor of success of your therapy (Norcross, 2002). The most important factor is actually what we call the "working alliance", that is the capacity of the client and the practitioner to create a therapeutic relationship based on trust and safety, for the therapeutic transformation to take place. Other important factors are the professionalism of the practitioner and the adequation of the therapy to the needs.

I read on some websites "our modality, unlike the others, is the only one that works". This arrogant statement makes me wonder if its author can also transmute lead into gold? The reality is that nobody holds "The Truth". The good therapy is the therapy that works for you and is effective, the good therapist the one that you can trust and helps you meet your goals.

If you choose me as your therapist, we will mainly work under the Relational Transactional Analysis therapeutic modality. Being quite of a mainstream approach, a lot of information can be found on the internet. Nevertheless, I thought it useful to sketch what are, in my view, some of its main points.

Transactional Analysis was developed by psychoanalytically trained American psychiatrist Dr Eric Berne in the 1950s, and was originally designed as a cognitive psychoanalysis for short-term therapies.

Over the last 60 years, thanks to its lively community, Transactional Analysis has happily integrated other Gestalt and Person-Centred influences and has blossomed into several schools. Some of my professors at the Metanoia Institute were the world-recognized founders of the “Relational” T.A. School, and have published many books and papers.

Transactional Analysis’s original tenets are structural analysis, functional analysis, game analysis, and script analysis. These, by certain aspects, resemble Ellis’s and Beck’s CBT (although Berne wasn’t aware of their respective work and nor were they of Berne’s).

The Relational school stresses the importance of the therapeutic alliance between the client and the practitioner. I am trained to identify interpersonal dynamics such as projective identifications and transferences that may occur in the therapy room and which will inform me about my client’s world - your "unthought known" (Bollas, 1987).

A typical treatment plan could start with a therapeutic contract and could go through decontamination (cognitive therapy), deconfusion (therapy of the unconscious), through to redecision work and crystallisation.

As my client, you don't have to be aware of going through these steps, which I will wrap in the foreground therapeutic relationship in the pure Carl Rogers tradition. Although one of our review sessions may be a good opportunity to reflect on it. Some of my clients are surprised by their progress!

To summarise, Relational Transactional Analysis may be viewed as a powerful two-person (Starck, 1999) integrative psychodynamic CBT promoting sustainable therapeutic change. Without the homework. And by no means a costly, intangible, lifelong indulgence!