Dr Christos Papakyriakopoulos - Profile

PhD Psych, MSc Family and Systemic Psychotherapy, MA, PG Dipl Systemic Practice

I am a Senior Specialist Systemic Psychotherapist with over 25 yrs of experience working with Families, Couples, Individuals, and children and adolescents. I have had the privilege of helping some wonderful and unique people face their complex challenges, recognise together their relational difficulties of all levels (e.g. couple, parent-child, family dynamic, work dynamic), as well as acknowledge together their named or un-named strengths and find collaborative ways to help them achieve positive change, overcome major personal and systemic stuckness, re-write their relational and family stories and end up living happier lives.

My approach to therapy

I offer a non-judgemental, compassionate, and empathetic approach which is tailored to my client’s pace and readiness to take small risks so that we can experiment with small differences that can make a difference towards a new journey to positive change in their lives.

My core clinical belief has been that at the heart of the art and science of psychotherapy is the practice of staying aware, attuned and connected with my clients’ inner experience, trauma, attachment difficulties with major caregivers in their lives, and unfulfilled needs.

I am a Systemic Psychotherapy specialist, but I bring several other clinical specialities in my clinical methods but I use a wide array of psychological approaches, methods and techniques that have high evidence base and achieve results by as reported by my clients’ feedback outcome forms.

THERAPY as a Process – What you can expect

Sometimes clients want to talk and explore painful experiences and issues, like the loss of a beloved relative or partner or child, or a very challenging, distressing maltreating or even abusive family/couple relationship, or their utter communication breakdown with their spouse, or their troubled self-esteem and their doubts of their self-worth. At the same time many feel they would desperately like to change things around but they do not know how, they do not seem to find the “right” words or they find trusting others difficult.

Rest assured you are not alone out there and many individuals and families are faced with these or similar challenges which I helped them overcome.

1st Session Practical Details

Beginning therapy starts with a semi-structured assessment session that lasts 50 minutes (60m for families). The 1st session is an opportunity for us to meet, for me to explain the therapeutic process, and we gently start embarking on the main points of your challenges for which you came to therapy. At some point in the first 2-3 sessions I will collect information on your individual, couple and family background. It also gives me the chance to hear from each of you your definition of what the challenge or difficulty is, its history and intensity, followed by your description of what changes you hope to achieve through the therapy/counselling work together. This will be summarised to the goals for the therapy together.

At the end of the session we decide together whether this feels good to work together on. Then I will propose a number of sessions based on your presentation and identified needs (usually 6, 12 or 18). Every short number of sessions we will have a mini review of how our plan and work is proceeding and if additional adjustments are needed we can agree them together. Following the initial assessment, we will start to meet on a regular basis. Individual sessions are 50 minutes long, Couple sessions 55 mins and family sessions 60 minutes long.

Sessions are provided in a quiet, confidential space where we will talk about what is on your mind and the issues you choose to discuss at a pace you feel comfortable with. You will not be pressured to talk about anything which you do not choose to or you do not feel ready to explore. My task as therapist is to help you achieve an understanding of your feelings, of your patterns of behaviour and of their meanings and to find together ways to change the aspects of your life you are not happy with, and to find the “right” language to communicate with your beloved ones. This is often achieved by enabling you to draw from your pool of strengths and skills, and by empowering you to change the way you relate with your inner self and with the important people in your life.

The way we talk

In our counselling session our therapeutic conversation will explore many facets of a challenge or problem you face, and the dimensions of your relationship with it.

This is done in a non-judgemental or non-blaming way. I will work with you to help you understand how you arrived at that point in your life and what you want to be or do different.

Types of Therapy offered, Difficulties Themes and How I can help you:

Couples

• Is your relationship going through a bad patch?
• Do you and your partner want different things from life? from your relationship?
• Is communication difficult?
• Are you arguing a lot?
• Have things got to the point where one of you felt threatened or overwhelmed and you walked out?

These are just some of the things couples who come to therapy talk about and I collaboratively help them resolve.

Sometimes people want support in talking about their unhappiness with life. There are many reasons why a person may feel unhappy. For some, their reasons are connected with their identity and sense of belonging and are related to:

• race
• sexuality
• adoption
• immigration status
• past experience of abuse
• loss or bereavement

Some people come to see me because they find themselves repeatedly making relationship choices that lead to disappointment; or others come because they worry about how to deal with choices in their lives that seem to drive people away or severely damage their relationships with them:

• depression
• panic attacks
• eating problem
• drinking problem
• drug misuse problem

Relationship counselling helps you to make the most of your relationships, past, present or future. It can help you even if you are not currently in a relationship. Many people believe that a good counsellor is only here to help with the major crises in people’s relationships. A good counsellor is the first source of help when people face divorce or separation; affairs or major conflict. But support can also be provided for the worries that might seem trivial or minor.

What can you expect from Relationship Counselling and Psychotherapy?

Your first appointment will be a consultation which lasts for up to 1 hour. This gives you the opportunity to talk about the problems you are facing and help you decide what the next options might be. If you decide to have ongoing counselling we will discuss the best plan for your needs, family circumstances and time allocated. Counselling normally takes place on a weekly or fortnightly basis at the same time every week.

Families

I will help you put things in perspective, learn how to deal with difficult situations, restore balance to family life and keep time aside for you and those close to you.

What can you expect from Family Counselling or Family Therapy?

• Family counselling helps you understand and cope better with the stresses and strains of family life. Families can be a source of support, encouragement and love but sometimes relationships within families are put under strain and family members may feel isolated, unloved, frustrated or overlooked.
• Family counselling can also help when siblings aren’t getting on, or parents and children are going through a divorce or separation. Forming a new family is a challenge and it is at this point that many parents contact a professional for support to help everyone settle.

Children and Young People’s Counselling

Life not so great? Too much arguing at home?

Children and young people’s counselling service is for any young person who is having problems at home or school. I can help you talk about the things that are worrying you. Children and young people tell us that seeing a counsellor helps because they are independent from either school or home life. I have more than 20 years of experience engaging very successfully with young persons with various difficulties. I talk with them honestly and openly always respecting their readiness to discuss particular issues and I can support them with problems like family breakdown; moving in with a second family; or bullying at school.

What can you expect from Children and Young People’s counselling?

You can expect to be helped in a supportive and non-judgmental way. What we discuss is always confidential, unless I become concerned about someone’s safety in your family, in which situation I will discuss the issue first with you before another contact might be made to help with better support.

• I hope that you join the thousands of families who have made use of professional support to open up the communication channels again, find ways to cope and change and let the healing process in their family begin.

In my professional background before I qualified as Systemic Psychotherapist, I have been a Research Psychologist for 20 years, a Research Officer in the University of London, UCL, for National research projects, a research methods in Psychology tutor, a commissioner for Academic Institutions research funding requests in Greece Athens for the Ministry of Education, and a workshop presenter and an expert member in several presentation panels for psychotherapy themes, topics and clinical applications.

I have been working in CAMHS in the NHS in London and in Surrey as a Lead Systemic and Family Psychotherapist for 15 years after qualifying form the most well-known and one of the highest considered international Systemic Institutes, The Institute of Family Therapy, London.
In the last 18 yrs I have been supporting Families, Couples and Individuals presenting with an array of difficulties:

I have been a senior specialist Systemic Psychotherapist with the Priory in London for 13 years.

I am a certified Diagnostic Assessor of Autism Spectrum Condition for adults and young people using the ADI-R standardised instrument/questionnaire.

I have been supporting families and couples for over 15 years where there is symptom presentation and/or diagnosis of neurodiversity and need for “adjustments” in family and couple relationships to accept what a presentation/diagnosis adds as awareness and I help my clients find a collaborative agreement on strategies that can “heal the divide”.

Publications:

I have presented articles and workshops in the field in international conferences, as a sample are the 2 below:
• at the Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Association (SEBDA) International Conference in Oxford – September 2010;
• and a research paper: “Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties and the Mental Processing Biases Suggested by School-Based Data Collection with Children Aged 8–12 in Greece: An Important Finding and Suggestions for Future Research”. In International Perspectives on Inclusive Education, April 2012; H. Daniels, J. Visser, Eds.