"When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending." Brene Brown
"When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending." Brene Brown
About Counselling and Psychotherapy
Counselling and psychotherapy are talking therapies (there is some debate about what the difference is between the two), that would usually involve you coming to talk with me once a week at the same time, for 50 minutes. You might choose to come for a few weeks to work on a particular issue or for support at a particularly difficult time in your life. Or you might choose to work with me on a longer term basis, to explore some of the deeper issues underlying your current difficulties. I offer both short-term and longer term or open-ended work and we can discuss what may best suit you at this time.
Whatever the therapeutic approach, research shows that ‘the therapeutic alliance’ is what makes therapy effective – that is, your confidence in me and in the therapy. So choosing a counsellor/psychotherapist you feel you can work with – and who feels they can help you - is important. I suggest having a session with me to discuss what’s brought you to counselling and to see what it’s like to talk with me, before deciding whether to continue. If I don't feel I'm best placed to help you, I will say so. If you continue, we’ll work collaboratively and will periodically discuss how you feel your therapy – and our working relationship - is going.
Whatever the therapeutic approach, research shows that ‘the therapeutic alliance’ is what makes therapy effective – that is, your confidence in me and in the therapy. So choosing a counsellor/psychotherapist you feel you can work with – and who feels they can help you - is important. I suggest having a session with me to discuss what’s brought you to counselling and to see what it’s like to talk with me, before deciding whether to continue. If I don't feel I'm best placed to help you, I will say so. If you continue, we’ll work collaboratively and will periodically discuss how you feel your therapy – and our working relationship - is going.
My approach |
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I’m an Integrative counsellor and psychotherapist, which means I’m trained in a number of therapeutic approaches, including Psychodynamic, Humanistic, Attachment theory, Body and contemporary relational psychotherapy, and EMDR, and I integrate a combination of these different approaches to best work in relationship with you as a unique individual.
Integrative counselling and psychotherapy are also about personal integration – that is, becoming aware of, coming to terms with and integrating different parts of ourselves and our experiences so we can feel more whole both in mind and body. This is an empowering process (and at times an uncomfortable one) that can liberate us from limiting thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and free us to make choices.
Integrative counselling and psychotherapy are also about personal integration – that is, becoming aware of, coming to terms with and integrating different parts of ourselves and our experiences so we can feel more whole both in mind and body. This is an empowering process (and at times an uncomfortable one) that can liberate us from limiting thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and free us to make choices.
More information
Here is a brief and simple summary of some of the key therapeutic approaches I use:
Psychodynamic - Beneath conscious awareness, the internal world of our mind develops early in life, shaping our personality, our behaviour and our experience of our external environment. Therapy can help bring the unconscious mind into consciousness, empowering us to make choices. Theorists since Klein explain that our internal world developed within the early relational environment in which we grew up. I find John Bowlby's evidence-based 'attachment theory' a helpful model:
Attachment - Human beings are inherently relational; from birth to death, we need to form attachments to others in order to feel secure and to regulate our emotions at an embodied level. How we do so is called our 'attachment style' and is largely developed early in life, in relation to our primary caregivers and how they respond to our infantile expressions of basic need. To varying degrees, we may unconsciously disconnect from emotional 'self states' that our caregivers are unable to tolerate or to help us cope with. As long as these parts of ourselves remain unconscious and unmet, they will continue to cause us pain, which we may try to manage, again unconsciously, with behaviours we often can't understand and don't consciously want - perhaps in our relationships with others or with alcohol, food or drugs.Therapy can offer a reparative relational environment (see below) and help make the unconscious conscious.
Humanistic - Rather than pathologise people for their problems, we approach them from a stance of unconditional positive regard and empathy, understanding that they have adapted, and continue to adapt creatively to adversity, rather than there being something wrong with them. You, the client, are the expert and the therapist stands alongside you, helping you identify what's in your way (which can include the therapist, if they position themselves as the 'expert').
Body - Our experience is embodied, and our bodies inform our experience of the world. Much of this happens out of awareness, so paying attention to sensations, urges, movements, can help us get in touch with our 'implicit' (right-brain) experience of the world, as well as the thoughts with which we make sense of it (left-brain). Sometimes trauma is remembered by the body when the cognitive brain has been too overwhelmed to stay present to what's happening - leaving us haunted by a multitude of physical symptoms that seem to have a 'mind of their own'. Focusing on the body as well as feelings and thoughts, can help us join up the dots and eventually to integrate traumatic experiences.
EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing. NICE recommended and evidence based approach. Traumatic experience is stored in state-specific form in separate neural networks in the right brain. In short, the body remembers what the mind cannot. While this separation may enable survival in the short term, long-term we may be constantly re-living the traumatic experience, triggered by body-based cues such as noise. This is because the right brain can't distinguish past from present without the left brain, depriving us of all the resources we have now that we didn't have then, and maintaining the isolation of the neural network. We may then find ourselves behaving in a multitude of ways that avoid the traumatic material but that harm us further. EMDR is an effective, targeted therapy that desensitises the traumatic material and reprocesses it in the safety of the here-and-now, enabling us to remember rather than re-live.
Relational - At the heart of my approach is an awareness of what's happening in the here-and-now between us. Some of your habitual patterns of relating outside the room are more than likely to show up in it, and these can be safely explored in the context of our therapeutic relationship.
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