Approach

My mission

I am passionate about providing psychotherapy, helping people to understand themselves better, and promoting healthy growth and development to alleviate suffering. My approach to therapy is ambitious in not only wanting to help you to reduce your distressing symptoms but to help you to improve your relationships and your quality of life.

My goals are always to help you to benefit and get the best from therapy, helping you to make changes for the better that help you to feel better. I work in a respectful and collaborative manner where the alliance between client and therapist is fundamental to establishing safety and trust. Forming a healthy and collaborative working alliance between therapist and client that work together in a true partnership, is a central feature of my approach. 

I work at a pace that is suitable, safe, and from within a framework that can usefully support you to step slightly outside of your comfort zone, in order to facilitate healthy development and growth. Whilst psychotherapy can sometimes be challenging, it can also be extremely rewarding, and set you on the path to freedom from perpetual suffering.

Clinical Expertise

I have extensive experience of working with complex trauma in the NHS, and have worked with people who are diagnostically said to have emotionally unstable or borderline personality disorder. These psychiatric diagnoses can sometimes be debilitating or pejorative and are usually underpinned by repeated experiences of multiple traumas occurring in childhood or in the life span. Symptoms accompanying psychiatric diagnosis are often indicative of unresolved past traumas. These symptoms can perpetuate further problems and attempts in resolving problems can sometimes lead to further problems creating a stuck cycle.  I have a lot of experience of working with people who are particularly stuck, or who may have chronic physical health symptoms that are not always responsive to traditional forms of treatment. My approach is mindful of the body in relation to unprocessed or repressed trauma that can manifest as physical health symptoms or physical pain. The approach that I use can work effectively with depression and anxiety, as well as for people that have habitually or unknowingly cut off from their feelings.

My Specialisms

COMPLEXITY: Working with complex problems or people who may be stuck; especially in relation to unresolved developmental experiences of childhood abuse leading to significant difficulties in later life, or to be at the root of psychiatric symptoms or diagnoses.

TRAUMA: Specialism in trauma focussed work; attachment trauma, complex trauma and repressed trauma in the body. Working with the mind and the body; disassociation, disconnection, depersonalisation, unconscious anxiety.

EMOTIONS: Addressing internal blockages to emotions and facilitating healthy regulation of emotion. Regulating anxiety. Fear reduction, resourcing self soothing system in response to threat. Distress tolerance.

SOMATISATION: Some psychosomatic, auto immune and medically unexplained conditions e.g. chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, IBS, physical tension/pain, tension headaches, insomnia, when connected to chronic stress and anxiety, underpinned by experiences of historical abuse, repressed trauma and repressed emotions.

RELATIONSHIP AND LIFE ISSUES: Difficulties people experience in relation to self, others, and the world; stress, fear, anxiety, anger, shame, rage, guilt, sadness, grief, loss, loneliness, despair, mistrust, isolation, abandonment, rejection, hopelessness, helplessness, entrapment, low self-esteem, self-criticism, impulsivity, over reacting, acting out, striving, perfectionism, poor self-care, self-neglect, self-harm.

What to expect.

When you contact me, I usually invite you to a free initial telephone consultation for approximately 30 minutes. Here, I will invite you to tell me about what difficulties you experience and for us to think together about how I might be able to help you. From there, if we think we could work together, we can decide whether it would be appropriate for you to take part in an assessment or a trial therapy.  The process is outlined below:

Assessment and Formulation

The assessment can take last for one to two hours. The purpose of the assessment is to help us understand how your difficulties began and identify factors that might trigger or keep your difficulties going, as well as learning about what strengths you have that can help you to stay well and recover. From this we can develop a shared psychological formulation about your difficulties and design an individually tailored treatment plan to address them. if we decide that we want to continue working together, we will set some mutually agreed aims and objectives for us to work towards in continuing therapy.

Trial therapy

The trial therapy can last for two to three hours and provide you with an experience of receiving this type of psychotherapy.  The trial therapy can function as part assessment, enabling us to hear more about your difficulties and how they originated, identifying a clear focus on the present sources of difficulty, and helping us to see how you experience some of the interventions on offer from within this approach.  There will be a focus on looking inwardly to help us understand how you might recognise and experience anxiety in your body, how you might experience helping relationships and hold distress inside, and for us to learn about any blockages in place that might be inhibiting the experience of healthy emotions or unknowingly be contributing to your difficulties.  It is possible in some cases for positive changes to be gained from the trial therapy alone. Please enquire about this for more information.

Therapy sessions

From either assessment or trial therapy; we will have developed a shared understanding about the sources of difficulty. We can then have some idea about how we might collaborate to address them if you so wish. If we decide to work together, we can set up a treatment plan with some aims and objectives to work towards and provide you with some therapy sessions. I can be flexible in offering either weekly or fortnightly sessions depending on your situation and finances. It may also be possible to block book for a number of sessions and receive a greater ‘chunk’ of therapy in a shorter space of time. Please contact me for more details to finds out more.

When sessions take place

Therapy sessions are available from Tuesday to Friday, in person face to face, or online. Face to face sessions are generally recommended, but online can work for people who are unable to travel or live afar. .

Fees

Sessions of ISTDP run for 90 minutes at £90 per hour. Please contact me for more details.

Fees are inclusive of your case being supervised periodically by highly skilled practitioners in ISTDP. Additional input and time is also provided to process your case outside of sessions. Please contact me for more details.