What is Living at Choice Counselling, Psychotherapy and Creative Arts Therapy?

Living at choice counselling, psychotherapy and creative arts therapy brings together a range of psychological therapies to clients in the East Sussex and West Sussex area.

You may be new to the idea of seeking counselling or psychotherapy and unsure what to expect and how ‘talking therapy’ can be extremely beneficial in reducing short-term anxiety and pain and in facilitating long-term change.

At Living at Choice, we offer psychotherapeutic counselling, integrative psychotherapy and creative arts therapy to couples and individuals.  We are based in an accessible residential area of Brighton and Hove, close to Seven Dials.

We offer short term counselling and psychotherapy for a minimum of 10 sessions.

Longer term counselling and psychotherapy is offered on an open-ended basis generally for a minimum of 40 sessions per year.

At Living at Choice, counselling and psychotherapy sessions are generally held on the same day and time each week.  This enables you to rely on your therapy sessions and to feel held knowing that each week your counsellor or psychotherapist is there for you.

Our rates are competitive and calculated on income and whether you are in short-term or long-term counselling or psychotherapy.  Please see our Sessions page for more details.

Psychotherapeutic counselling is offered by Sam Jahara to individuals seeking to deal with both sort- and long-term issues such as bereavement, depression, anxiety issues, stress, phobias to name a few.  Psychotherapeutic counselling is similar to counselling, however, requires significantly more training in and understanding of psychological issues.  Sam’s approach is relational and she draws extensively on the humanistic framework of counselling and psychotherapy.

Where appropriate, Sam is trained to use the arts as a medium of therapeutic expression in sessions.  This is entirely optional and many clients find it can be healing to use the arts to express trauma and painful feelings.

Psychotherapy is similar to counselling, however, practitioners have received a deeper and longer period of clinical training and are qualified to work with a wider range of psychological issues and potentially over a longer period of time.  Clients who choose to come to psychotherapy may be seeking help with anger management, depression, anxiety issues as well as personality disorders and other deeply rooted psychological problems.  Mark Vahrmeyer is a trained integrative psychotherapist drawing on a combination of psychodynamic and existential theory in his work.  Mark sees both individuals and couples for short-term and long-term psychotherapy.

Whilst each has followed a different path in the psychological approaches they employ with clients, both Mark and Sam share common principles in how best to facilitate change with clients.  First and foremost, both believe that it is the power of the relationship between client and therapist that creates the possibility for dialogue.  This relationship is unique and means walking a fine balance between supporting, guiding and challenging you, whilst respecting that you, not us, are the master of your own life.

In working with us will not be judged for the choices you are making or have made in the past.  However, if these choices are no longer working for you, or you feel stuck in a certain way of seeing the world, we will gently guide you to find other ways of living your life and in freeing yourself from dysfunctional and painful ways of seeing yourself.