Therapy

People come here about work more often than you might expect, and usually not because they want a new job. They want to work out whether the problem is the job, the workplace, or something they are carrying into it.

—   A manager or colleague who is making work unbearable

—   Bullying, harassment or discrimination

—   A decision you cannot make — take the promotion, leave, retrain, go out on your own

—   Losing a job, being made redundant, or being managed out

—   Imposter feelings, and the exhaustion of trying to outrun them

—   Conflict with a business partner or within a team

—   Returning after illness, parental leave or a mental health absence

—   Work that has stopped meaning anything

—   Retirement — which is a bigger identity event than most people are warned about

This matters more in a region like ours than it does in a large metro. The Twin Ports is a place where people know each other — where your manager's neighbour works in HR and your colleague's spouse is at the same clinic. If you are dealing with something at work, the last thing you want is to route it through an employer-provided service.

We are independent. Nothing you say here goes to your employer, and there is no report at the end of it.

Often it starts with separating the strands, because "I hate my job" usually contains three or four different problems. Is this burnout, or is this the wrong role? Is this a bad workplace, or an anxiety response? Is the decision genuinely impossible, or is fear making it feel that way?

From there, the work commonly involves CBT for the thought patterns driving the distress, practical work on boundaries and assertiveness, values-based work for career decisions, and — where the workplace has genuinely been damaging — treating that properly rather than reframing it. Where a job has become a health issue, our stress and burnout page is the closer fit. Where it is producing panic or dread, see anxiety therapy.

If the core problem is an unresolved conflict with a specific person — a partner in a business, a co-owner, a team that has broken down — therapy may not be the tool. Workplace and business mediation brings both parties into a structured, confidential process aimed at a workable agreement. If the other party will not take part, conflict coaching prepares you to handle it yourself. We offer both.

FAQ