Counselling (one to six sessions) will not normally deal with unconscious issues from childhood, but will focus on immediate, current difficulties, and seek to define and resolve them.

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Psychotherapy (a few months to several years) deals with the unconscious:

Psychoanalytical: by paying attention to memories, dreams, and our ways of relating to others, we are able to understand how past experiences have affected our life without our having been aware of the fact.
Attachment-based: attachment theory concerns a person's earliest relationships with his or her parents or carers. These formative experiences can have a profound effect on the way we make attachments later in life.
Creative approaches: painting, writing, clay, sandplay may be used, where appropriate, to get in touch with memories and feelings.