Introduction
People often use “counselling” and “psychotherapy” as if they’re the same thing. They overlap, but each approach is designed for different depths of work. Understanding the difference can help you choose the kind of support that actually fits your situation right now, whether you need practical help with what’s happening in your life, or you’re looking to undertake more foundational work to shift emotional patterns that have been running for many years.
At Seva Counselling, I offer counselling and psychotherapy, at times offering breathwork to support the deeper exploration of the psyche, and sometimes using both approaches with the same clients. However, the technical distinction matters because the outcomes, pace, and depth can be very different. Helping to understand the differences also allows you to orient towards a more tailored approach to your own investigation and personal work.
Counselling: Support for What’s Happening Now
Counselling is generally present-focused. It helps you deal with the pressures, decisions, stresses, or relationship challenges that are affecting your day-to-day life.
It’s ideal when:
- You’re overwhelmed and need clarity
- Life feels chaotic or stressful
- You need help navigating a break-up, work issue, or family tension
- Communication and boundaries need strengthening
- You want tools and strategies you can use immediately
Counselling gives you direction, grounding, and practical support — without needing to dig into your entire emotional history. I generally refer to counselling as my “top-down” approach to working with the mind to create immediate shifts and enable learning to support more helpful and beneficial behaviour patterns.
Psychotherapy: Working With the Deeper Patterns
Psychotherapy is therefore what I call my “bottom-up” approach: working at a deeper level with the unconscious to instigate long-term change and character shift that flows through to changes on the surface of your behaviour over time. Instead of focusing solely on the current situation, the psychotherapeutic approach works with the underlying emotional patterns, attachment wounds, and long-held beliefs that shape how all of us relate, cope, and respond.
Psychotherapy is ideal when:
- You keep repeating the same relationship patterns
- Anxiety, self-doubt, or hypervigilance feel ingrained
- Past experiences still shape your reactions
- You feel unsafe relaxing or trusting life to unfold
- You sense deeper emotional material that talking alone doesn’t shift
Psychotherapy creates deeper structural change. It lets the nervous system unlearn old patterns at a deep, unconscious level, rather than require persistent, effortful and often exhausting ongoing management of behaviour.
How the Two Work Together
Most people don’t need to choose their focus upfront. We start with a simple, connected conversation and go from there. It’s my role to help guide you in the direct that appears to help best. Clients might start with counselling because something immediate needs attention, but then naturally shifts into psychotherapy once we’re grounded enough to explore what’s underneath.
In practice, both approaches can appear in the same session: support for what’s happening today, and understanding of the patterns behind it.
That kind of flexibility is part of my approach.
Why Knowing the Difference Helps
When you understand the distinction, you can get exactly the kind of support you need:
- Counselling stabilises the present
- Psychotherapy reworks the architecture of your orientation to the world
For people who’ve been strong for a long time, who carry a lot privately, or who have reached a point in life where old strategies aren’t working anymore, psychotherapy often becomes the doorway to real change. On the other hand, counselling remains crucial for clarity, grounding, and staying steady during difficult periods.
What I Offer at Seva Counselling
In ancient times, people had greater access to elder and sources of wisdom they could learn from or with who they could receive a kind of “reality check”. I do crisis work with people needing urgent support and I also have regular clients who come just once per month to unpack what’s going on in their lives, to check their thinking and their blind spots, and consider options other than their hardwired ways to tackle ongoing challenges.
My work combines counselling and psychotherapy, so you don’t have to figure it out alone. Sessions may include:
- Practical guidance and support
- Nervous system-oriented psychotherapy
- Exploration of childhood and attachment patterns
- Breathwork for emotional release
- Processing of long-term coping strategies
- Work with beliefs, identity, and self-trust
- Grounding during life transitions
The aim – whether it is counselling or psychotherapy – is always the same:
to help you feel more stable, more yourself, and more able to live the life you want.
If you are unsure where to start, it doesn’t matter: the first consultation always involves mapping the terrain and examining the issues at play in your life as well as how they arose.
Make a booking via the website form or text/email to begin, and start getting the relief you’re looking for today.