MY APPROACH
As an integrative trauma-informed therapist I use a range of approaches to tailor the therapy to each individual client. Here are the main therapies on which I draw:
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Embodied Relational Psychotherapy: This compassionate approach emphasizes the connection between mind and body in the healing process. We use the therapeutic relationship to deeply recognise how our emotions, experiences, and past traumas are stored in our physical selves, and play out in current patterns. Through building a nurturing, authentic relationship to foster a sense of safety and trust, this holistic approach addresses emotional challenges, creates healing in the here and now, and teaches us to draw on the innate resources of our bodies to understand and transform ourselves and our relationships, and find emotional freedom.
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Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: This therapeutic approach explores the deep-seated emotions and unconscious patterns influencing your thoughts and behaviours. By understanding these underlying influences, and how past experiences and relationships unconsciously influence current behaviour and feelings, we gain insight into how we relate to ourselves and others, enabling us to discover new ways of navigating life's complexities with greater clarity. This includes exploring the ways in which we internalise and recreate our earliest relationships, to better understand ourselves and to create new behaviours and patterns. A supportive therapeutic relationship is integral to this.
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Attachment Based Psychotherapy: This sensitive therapy modality explores how our early relationship to significant others in our lives influences our growth, emotional development and sense of security or insecurity. This enables us to understand our ‘internal working models’; the patterns established from birth and our earliest relationships with our caregivers that determine how we interact with others and how we feel about ourselves. Through a supportive relationship with the therapist, we can create new, more helpful structures to re-establish our way of being with others and with ourselves, earning secure attachment. This is particularly helpful for working with issues rooted in childhood.
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Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy: This innovative, compassionate and transformative model helps us understand and heal our inner selves. It recognizes that we all have parts within us which work to protect us from pain, or which have been wounded in the past. By fostering a dialogue between these parts, IFS will empower you to more harmoniously navigate your inner landscape, and to heal from past experiences by harnessing the inner strength and compassion of your Self.
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Somatic and Polyvagal Therapy: Here we work directly with your body and nervous system to understand and unlock trauma and past wounds, to explore and change patterns, evolve protective defences, and nurture yourself from the inside out, harnessing your innate potential and power. We work with awareness and compassion, and specific techniques and practices to bring a bottom-up approach to your therapy.
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Trauma-informed: My integrative approach is underpinned by a trauma-informed model. This means that I work from an understanding that trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have a profound impact on your sense of safety and well-being. I use evidence-based methods like IFS and trauma-sensitive therapy to help you process past experiences and regain control of your life.
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In line with Humanistic Principles, I recognise, value and work with the whole of you, in your fullness, in the belief that each person contains within them the potential for growth and transformation, which I facilitate by creating a nurturing, supportive therapeutic environment in which therapy and counselling can unfold.
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I also use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Mindfulness techniques and exercises, to actively address and change behaviours and patterns that do not serve you, alongside our deep exploratory work. I integrate Self-Compassion teaching and support where needed.
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