NATALIJA HAYTERPSYCHOTHERAPY & COUNSELLINGSome difficulties respond well to short, focused work. Others — long-standing patterns, complex trauma, a pervasive sense that something isn't right — call for something deeper and longer. Here is what that involves.
Why longer
Patterns formed over a lifetime, often early and outside awareness, rarely shift in a handful of sessions. Longer-term, often psychoanalytic, therapy gives time for these patterns to surface within a consistent relationship, to be understood rather than just managed, and gradually to change at the root.
What it looks like
Typically weekly sessions over a longer period. Early on, much of the work is building trust and understanding the shape of things. Over time, the therapy relationship itself becomes a place where old patterns appear and can be worked through directly — one of the most powerful mechanisms of deep change.
What change feels like
Change in longer-term work is often gradual and cumulative rather than dramatic — less a lightning bolt, more a slow shift in how you experience yourself and others. People describe feeling more solid, less driven by old fears, more able to choose their responses rather than be run by them. We review progress together throughout, and the pace is always yours.
Natalija Hayter is a BABCP-registered psychotherapist with over a decade of clinical experience across the NHS, the voluntary sector and private practice, trained at the Tavistock and AGIP. She offers CBT, psychoanalytic and relational therapy in Pimlico, London and online, in English, Latvian and Russian. More about Natalija
Last reviewed: June 2026 by Natalija Hayter, BABCP-registered psychotherapist.