Anja Eva Ruschkowski

Welcome

I am a Psychotherapist based in South East London, working with adults in the NHS and in private practice. Please explore my website to find out more and get in touch via the contact form to ask any questions or to book a consultation.

Psychotherapy is a form of talking therapy with a long tradition and designed to help people with a wide range of difficulties. You may turn to psychotherapy because you do not enjoy or live life the way you would like to. There might be certain thoughts, behaviours or feelings that weigh you down or that you do not understand. You may struggle connecting to the people around you or doing the things that bring you joy without knowing why. Or there might have been unexpected changes or losses in your life that have left you grieving. 

Psychotherapy offers a confidential and non-judgemental space where you can explore these thoughts, feelings and difficult events.

Read more

The problems that bring you to therapy are not treated in isolation. Instead we explore them in view of your personal and cultural history. Seen in the wider context of your life, symptoms like anxiety or low mood can often be traced back to past conflicts, questions or memories that have been forgotten or pushed out of mind. Addressing what lies behind the problems allows you a better understanding of yourself and your closest relationships and greater freedom moving forward.

As social beings, we are attuned to explicit and implicit assumptions about what is right or fair, what is important or desirable (for example at home, at school or at work). Consciously and unconsciously, we are shaped by these rules. This impacts how we see ourselves, how we spend our time and who we love or reject. Psychotherapy questions what is usually taken as given. It pays attention to what might be deemed irrelevant or unimportant elsewhere. This is why, unlike other forms of therapy, psychotherapy has no predefined goals. In psychotherapy you might gain new perspectives as to what is most important to you and why. This can lead to new discoveries, new ways of relating to others and new ways of being in the world that are not imposed by others but are uniquely yours.

I hold an MSc in Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy from Birkbeck, University of London, and an MSc in Psychology and an MA in History of Art from the University of Bamberg, Germany.  Psychotherapy and art are for me both ways to process and respond to the world around us, especially experiences that are initially harder to make sense of.

I have a particular interest in psychoanalysis, especially the works of the French Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, and in the way language shapes our unconscious. I am interested in how words that have intrigued, hurt or captivated us in childhood can play a special role throughout adulthood, often without us noticing, or how a multilingual person might discover that their languages bring different nuances to the way they feel and think about their life. I believe that the role that language plays in our life is what makes talking therapy work.

I offer sessions in English or in German.

Practical Information

I offer weekly sessions of long-term or short-term psychotherapy.

Once you get in touch with me, we can arrange initial phone call free of charge as an opportunity to discuss any questions that you might have and to talk about what you can expect from starting therapy.

My fee for the first in-person consultation is £50 and £70 for the following sessions. I reserve some midday slots at a reduced price of £50.

To get in touch, please use the contact form and I will try to respond to you within 48 hours.

Contact

Image: Flowers in a Basket and a Vase by Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1615, Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.