My Therapeutic Approach
Greater curiosity about yourself and increased self-awareness can help you to recognise and shift destructive or unhelpful patterns of behaviour, and make more fulfilling choices. This insight can also help you to build meaningful relationships and allow you to live a richer, more rewarding and balanced life.
To me therapy is a collaborative process, where we work together to understand your situation, difficulties and needs from your unique viewpoint.
Focusing on You…
I work from a psychodynamic orientation and work in an integrative way depending on your particular needs. Psychodynamic understandings help us to make links between your current life and relationships, and your past experiences. This can enrich your awareness of your emotions and behaviour, and open up new ways of relating to yourself and to others. This deeper appreciation of your way of being in the world can also allow for more compassion, creativity and authenticity in how you live.
Additional Approaches…
In addition I am trained in, and draw on, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness-based therapies, Compassion Focused Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT).
These approaches can offer additional understandings of emotions and ways of addressing different experiences. For example, CBT can be useful in connecting our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. It can allow us to understand the impact of unhelpful thinking and behavioural patterns and start to shift these. Mindfulness offers a way to be more present and grounded in our experience, and DBT can offer useful skills for managing difficult feelings.
What to expect…
What I usually suggest is that we set up 2-3 initial sessions in order for you to get a sense of how I work and see that you feel comfortable with me. This also gives me the chance to understand in more detail what you are wanting from therapy and to assess what may be helpful. We then decide together how best to go forward.
It is important that a therapy relationship feels safe and comfortable and if, for whatever reason, you do not feel I am the right therapist for you I will be happy to help you find a therapist who feels like a better fit.
Couples Therapy…
I have found working with couples rich and rewarding and couples counselling can offer a space for better understanding and communication as well as deeper connectedness. I have done additional training and supervision in Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples and use this as a framework in my work with couples.
