Approach with Adults
I am a humansitic, intergrative and psychotherapeutic counsellor which means I have a broad backdrop of influences and understanding that informs my work but the client is always placed at the centre. In this way I can draw on a range of different therapeutic theory and approaches to best understand and serve my clients and their needs. I believe people are their own best resource in terms of healing, growth or change and that by facilitating the right environment for my clients, I can help them understand and reflect on what is going on for them; how they operate in the world and get in touch with what it is that they need from their life and relationships within the context of their own narrative.
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I sometimes work in a proactive way, drawing on creative therapeutic techniques such as art, play and movement as well as mindfulness and self-compassion. I try to work responsively to the client in front of me and go at their pace. I work in both a long and short term way and after an initial discussion of your aims from therapy, we would decide upon the duration of our work within the first few sessions, allowing some degree of flexibility and review throughout.
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Some common areas of my work include:Anxiety, Depression, Stress, Trauma, Spirituality, Creative Therapy, Inner Child, Dreams and the nonconscious. I am a big believer in Self-compassion and the power of taking control of our natural, but sometimes forgotten, ability to be aware and mindful with our whole being. My work is informed, amongst others, by Carl Rogers who prioritises the positive effects of the therapeutic relationship and I integrate into this person centred approach a range of theory including but not exclusively: Attachment theory, Gestalt Therapy, Freud, Jung, Existential, Transpersonal and Somatic Experience
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Young People
Feeling safe in a space, emotionally and physically is of paramount importance in my approach to working with young people. My aim is for the young client to feel seen, known and cherished within a healthy boundaried counselling framework. This means I will often take several sessions ensuring the young person feels known by getting to know them. From this healthy and safe foundation we go on to explore the young person's feelings and thoughts and how life is for them right now as well as how it has been in the past. Through this exploration, that can look very different depending on the client, the aim is for the feelings to have been felt, processed and understood and then we can move into a place of strategy and empowerment, whereby the young client is able to make conscious decisions about how to manage their big feelings now that they understand them better.
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I prefer face to face therapeutic work however, I can be flexible where necessary with online therapy. All face to face sessions are 50 minutes long
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Children (4-11 yrs)
Therapy for children is different to that with adults and even young people. So much of the work is based in play and creativity which allows for the explorationa dn processing of past traumatic events or current diffculties they are going through. I very much work through enabling a safe and consistent warm and friendly environment that is there for the child to do what they want with. In this "container" they are safe to explore and sometimes this leads into a verbal expression of a thought or feeling. In this way we chat at the pace of the child and in a way that recognises their developmental stage. I offer parental or carer support where appropriate and like to make an assessment collaboratively ; with school and or any other inout that might be helpful. Children have a right to privacy and my work respects that. That said, working systemically within the confines of confidentiality can be of benefit to a child. We can chat through any or all of this when or if you come to see me - I always see children with a parent or carer at first; and then we can go from there.
