Counselling and Psychotherapy

Counselling works by providing a safe, supportive, consistent and confidential relationship where you can speak without fear of judgement or rejection. Through this relationship difficult life experiences can be worked through, self-awareness can grow and old wounds can begin to heal. In my experience, this has helped those I have worked with to feel more at home in their own skin, see different possibilities for relationships, feel an increase in compassion for themselves and find a positive outlook for the future. 

My approach is integrative and informed by the below ideas.

Interpersonal

“All real living is meeting.” - Martin Buber

Using an interpersonal approach, I work with the therapeutic relationship to bring your awareness to how you are in the here-and-now and how this relates to what has brought you to therapy. Familiar patterns and expectations from others are played out in the therapeutic relationship itself. Bringing attention to these patterns helps to deepen your understanding on what’s motivating your ways of relating to others.

Existential

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

Through existential ideas I look at individual responsibility and the ways in which you are contributing to your difficulties. This helps by addressing the things that you are able to change yourself and lessens the dependence on other people to make it better for you. This approach is also concerned with meaning making, confronting uncertainty and making choices.

Humanistic

“A normal human being… does not exist.” - Karen Horney

With a humanistic lens I believe that everyone has the capacity for growth and that this growth can take any route. Humanistic ideas help by focussing the work to help you find the path that fits you, and that your needs, goals and way of living life are individual. There is no set way to do anything and humanistic therapy allows for creativity and experimentation to help you find your own way to live in deeper fulfilment.

Trauma Informed

“Being traumatized is not just an issue of being stuck in the past; it is just as much a problem of not being fully alive in the present.” – Bessel Van Der Kolk

From my work in trauma services, I have come to place an emphasis on how early life and childhood experiences shape our understanding of self and our expectations of other people. I am also attentive to how past experiences are held in the body by way of sensations and feelings. Noticing what the body is communicating helps to develop a deeper understanding of yourself and a greater coherence to your emotional world.