Abigail Wedderkopp is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with a private practice in Taunton in Somerset. She trained in the United States and England and has over thirty years of experience in working with adults, adolescents and children. She works with adults and couples, and children from the ages of three to young adulthood. Work with children involves play as well as talk; the work with adults relies solely on verbal communication.

Her clinical practice is based on psychoanalytic theory and a specific approach to the understanding and treatment of mental functioning and its disturbances. Psychoanalysis considers that consciousness is not all there is to the mind – we have impulses, feelings and thoughts that we are often not aware of. The basis of the psychoanalytic method is to offer people the opportunity to talk freely and for the therapist not only to listen carefully but to also try to understand, from what is being communicated verbally and non-verbally, the underlying emotional conflict. Conveying this understanding through interpretation aims to help the person seeking help gain insight into emotional states and thereby find relief and enrichment in personal life.

Individuals from all walks of life seek psychotherapeutic help for many different conditions. These may include specific problems such as depression, panic states, phobias, angry outbursts, obsessional behaviour and psychosomatic problems. However, people who turn to psychotherapy may often feel worried or distressed in more generalised ways; for example, feeling aimless or dissatisfied in his or her work life, or unable to form satisfactory personal or sexual relationships. The therapeutic relationship with the therapist and the gradual process which occurs within that relationship of understanding the inner world of the individual can offer insight and bring about long-term change.

Abigail Wedderkopp teaches on the training programme for psychoanalytic psychotherapists at The Severnside Institute for Psychotherapy, where she is also a training therapist and training supervisor. She is a training therapist for The Tavistock Clinic. She has written and presented papers at various forums, and been published in the journal PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY.

She is a registered member of The British Psychoanalytic Council and The Bridge Foundation for Psychotherapy and the Arts.