Hello and welcome to Lee Psychology incorporating the private practices of Paul Lee BSc. (Hons). MSc. (Psych) and Joan Lee D. Hyp. MIAEBP.
We offer a range of scientifically established psychosocial counselling services for people seeking an alternative approach to the bio-medical and psychiatric dogmas associated with diagnosis, mental illness and disorder.
Our wellbeing and counselling support services are delivered within the British Psychological Society Power Threat Meaning Framework which seeks to address human distress as a product of the socio-economic, cultural and historical life context and NOT as the result of biomedical models promoted by the medical and psychiatric communities.
Our starting position for providing psychosocial counselling support is “what has happened to you” rather than “what is wrong with you”?
Lee Psychology Partners
Paul Lee BSc. MSc.
Paul trained in the Psychoanalytic approach in 1988 and holds both Bachelors and Masters degree in applied psychology. Paul’s interest is in helping people recover from distress using psychosocial counselling combined with a rejection of the bio-medical models of “mental illness”.
Joan Lee D. Hyp. MIABP
Joan trained in hypnotherapy in 2011 and has gone onto study over 20 other counselling courses.
She is currently a BSc. undergraduate with the O.U. studying a BPS accredited psychology with counselling degree and is a senior partner at Lee Psychology.
Our Expertise
Different Forms of Distress & Emotional Difficulties
Although all of the following human experiences have been classified as ‘mental illnesses’ they can be more realistically thought of as normal emotions and behaviours that anybody is capable of feeling.
A more useful (and accurate) way of thinking about these experiences is to regard them as reactions, adaptations or coping mechanisms designed to ameliorate the negative impacts of things that people have experienced during the course of their lives.
Anxiety
Feelings of anxiety and worry are normal responses to the perception of a threat. What makes something threatening depends on beliefs and values.
Sadness
People feel sad for different reasons and sadness can be transitory or more prolonged and profound and in these cases may be thought of as ‘depression’.
Anger
Anger becomes problematic when it extends beyond the control of the person ‘feeling’ it. It is often related to feelings of ‘unfairness’ or ‘maltreatment’.
Panic
Panic is the feeling people experience when they are confronted by situations they feel they can’t cope with. It is a more immediate form of anxiety.
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety is what people experience when they worry about breaking the social rules or worry about what social peers will think of them.
Alcohol Problems
People often use alcohol as a way of ‘chilling’ or relaxing after a stressful day, however if you ‘need’ a drink to cope it can be highly problematic.
Stress
Stress is the normal reaction to feeling under pressure. Pressure itself is highly subjective and is linked to the idea of ‘resilience’.
Phobias
Phobias are defined as ‘irrational’ fears about certain situations or objects. Whilst the resulting anxiety is certainly real, phobias are based on illogical ideas.
Drug Problems
Like alcohol, recreational drugs are often used a ‘coping’ mechanisms or escapism. For some people, recreational use can develop into ‘dependence’.
More Problems We Can Help
Lee Psychology have been helping people to overcome a wide range of different emotional problems and difficulties since 2009 including over 100 different phobias.
No matter what’s going on with you, counselling can almost certainly help you to understand youself more fully and equip you to cope more effectively with life’s challenges.
You can see a more comprehensive list of the problems we can help here.
Support
Psychosocial Counselling
We can help you to understand why you are feeling distressed, identify your own strengths and resources, provide guidance and support for how to make positive changes and assist you in getting back on with the business of living your life more fully and effectively.
We offer FREE initial consultations to prospective clients so that you have the opportunity to discuss your problems and find out if our approach fits with your needs, all without any further obligation to proceed.
You can contact us to arrange an initial consultation here.
The CORE Programme
Distress Recovery through Cognitive Reconstruction
The CORE programme builds on the fundamental principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and an appreciation of how the human brain makes meanings out of different experiences and then uses those meanings to code for future contingencies.
It is a psychosocial approach that rejects bio-medical and psychiatric models of human distress.
Created as an online learning platform incorporating 10 in-depth modules, it can be used in conjunction with face-to-face counselling as well as Zoom video counselling sessions.
For those people with more manageable levels of distress, it can also be used as a ‘teach yourself’ course.
You can find out more about the Core Programme here.
The Power Threat Meaning Framework
Against the Bio-Medical Classification of Distress
The Power Threat Meaning Framework was devised by the clinical psychology division of the British Psychological Society (BPS) as a direct challenge to the pathologisation and medicalisation of human distress by the psychiatric community and its continously expanding classification of normal human emotions as biological illnesses, particularly in the latest DSM V (2022) publication.
The framework is intended to help sufferers, and those helping them with recovery, to conceptualise their current distress in terms of their own life experiences and, in particular, in relation to how power has been used, what types of threats they experienced and how they have attributed meaning or made sense of those experiences.
Understanding the inter-play between these three concepts can help both the sufferer and the counsellor in the formulation of an effective psychosocial recovery programme.
Power
Power, in psycho-social contexts, is the ability to direct or influence the actions of others. Power can be institutional, legal, economic, social, cultural, emotional or physical and have both positive and negative effects.
Read more about Power here.
Threats
Threats also come in many forms including existential (threats to life), emotional (withdrawal of love), social and cultural (exclusion), legal (incarceration) and psychological (distress).
Read more about Threats here.
Meanings
The meanings that we attribute to any given experience are highly subjective and congruent with our core beliefs and values. Our meanings determine how we react to situations.
Read more about Meanings here.