Sarah Payler is an experienced psychodynamic psychotherapist and counsellor working from her consulting room in Charlbury, near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire. She also offers sessions online and by telephone. Formerly a professional orchestral and chamber musician, Sarah understands the stresses and unique demands of the performing world and has worked with many actors, musicians, artists and creatives.
As a psychotherapist Sarah helps clients with anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, emotional trauma, perfectionism, performance anxiety, psychosomatic problems, identity issues, boarding school syndrome bereavement, relationship and family problems.
She works psychodynamically and psychoanalytically, meaning that the root causes of problems are explored. Often the issues that people struggle with in the present relate to unresolved experiences or events in the past. Feelings and thoughts, which were felt to be unbearable or unacceptable at the time, are pushed down into our unconscious, but are inexplicably stirred up in the present causing conflict. This is often accompanied by emotional and psychological distress. We find ourselves repeating patterns of behaviour and relating without understanding why. Psychodynamic therapy can help clarify these deep emotions so that we can begin to live more freely and authentically, unburdened by the past.