I have an extraordinary range of people who seek me out each month; men, women, teenagers, children – anyone who wants real results quickly from a psychotherapist in Dundee, a counsellor in Aberdeen or a therapist in North of Scotland. When the email or phone call comes in and I see or hear the phrase ‘I want …’ I breath a sign of relief.

I know these people are ‘therapy ready’.

The contrast is when I read: ‘my husband needs …’, or ‘my daughter has this …’, or ‘my mother wants to …’ – these are all first pointers to me that the person contacting me might be struggling in a relationship – friendship, family, partner or colleague – and their solution is to seek help to have that person change. It makes sense at first glance – you make me uncomfortable so I want you to change. However a more conscious person might say – I’m allowing this discomfort to exist in my life, how can I equip myself to influence a change.

Therapy ready clients have got to a place in their life where they’ve personally lived with their challenge for long enough. These guys are on a mission. They might be experiencing depression, anxiety, unsatisfying (or abusive) relationships, trauma, eating disorders or panic attacks. Sometimes they’ve tried to reason out a solution themselves and some have made practical changes with varying degrees of success. A client may come to me specifically to receive Human Givens therapy having tried other therapies, or having spoken to their GP and have been on medication for months or even years. Whatever the case, therapy ready clients are hungry for change.

I had a delightful man in his 50s come to me some years ago who wanted a result with an eating disorder he had been battling with for years. He’d tried to increase what he was able to eat but in fact his diet was relatively limited, to a point where it impacted business lunches, mealtimes with his family and his general physical health and self esteem. He was fed up, on a mission and definitely therapy ready. So ready in fact, that his process took just two sessions – a month apart.

Within weeks he had a massive mindset shift about food and changed his relationship with it entirely – almost nothing was outside his comfort zone to try. Two sessions! That’s not hugely unusual from a timings perspective when a therapy ready person combines their drive with an modern, practical therapy like Human Givens (some people can take a little longer to get their result, 3 perhaps 4 sessions, some up to 6 sessions – more than that is rare).

Mindset and motivation is everything. When the thought of living one more month (or one more day) with a mental or emotional debility is more uncomfortable than taking action and googling ‘therapist in Aberdeen’ – or wherever – you know you’re in a category of client that a Human Givens therapists like me is going to love to see and would be honoured to work with.