Paul Letham-McGrath

Paul is a fully-qualified registered counsellor based in Christchurch, Rolleston, and online. He has 11 years of full-time private practice experience. His counselling style is warm, interactive, exploratory, and methodical.

Paul’s main areas of specialty are:

• Creative and performance industries
• Existential concerns (the search for meaning, purpose, or direction)
• Depression and anxiety
• Relationship problems
• Gay, lesbian, and bisexual concerns
• Gender identity issues, including detransition
• Intimacy and sexuality
• Spirituality
• Jungian, transpersonal, and depth psychology

Counselling can help you:

• Understand your emotions and thinking patterns
• Develop coping strategies
• Explore options and possibilities
• Empower you to make decisions
• Improve your communication skills
• Build a healthy self-image and identity
• Understand influences from your personal history and upbringing
• Relate to others more productively

About Paul

​Born into a rural Canterbury family, Paul showed an early interest in both human behaviour and the creative arts. After an initial foray into the worlds of theatre, music and performance, which included gaining an undergraduate degree in drama and music, Paul began studying psychology, culminating in two diplomas and a Bachelor of Counselling degree.

In addition to his academic background, Paul also brings to his practice first-hand experience of depression and anxiety and a deep understanding of the conditions that can lead to their development.

Who looks outside, dreams;
who looks inside, awakens.
– Carl Jung

Paul’s Approach

Paul’s work is fundamentally rooted in the idea of “client-centred practice”. This reflects the philosophy that you are the expert in your own life. Paul integrates other modalities as well, depending upon your needs. Drawing from a number of therapeutic approaches, he also works within existential, solution-based, narrative, psychodynamic, Jungian, and cognitive-behavioural (CBT/DBT) methods.

What is counselling?

Counselling provides an opportunity for you to express your thoughts and feelings in a safe, confidential space. It is an opportunity for you to talk about what’s important to you, to seek clarity or insight, to make meaning or sense of what’s happening, and to gain control over aspects of your life that may be troubling you. Counselling relies upon the therapeutic relationship that builds over time between the counsellor and yourself. Therapy can be short-term or longer-term, depending on your needs, and the dynamics of counselling will differ from person to person.

What is a counsellor’s role?

Your counsellor is primarily a curious companion and collaborator. Once the goals of your therapy have been determined, your counsellor is there to listen, reflect, interact and challenge you when necessary. He will help you make sense of what is going on for you, accompanying you as you explore new perspectives. The discussions you have with your counsellor are supportive and respectful, free from criticism or judgement. Your counsellor is less of an “expert” and more of a well-informed, unbiased, and encouraging companion, holding your needs in mind, and tasked with helping you reach your full potential.