Adults
I am an experienced psychotherapist and have completed a four-year adult psychotherapy training in Integrative Transactional Analysis. I am also a level 4 trained and experienced EMDR therapist (See EMDR for further details).
Psychotherapy can help when people have lost themselves and are stuck in unproductive, unsatisfying, even self-destructive patterns of feeling and behaviour.
These patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving are not chosen or established at a conscious level. They are developed outside of our awareness, usually as a result of non-verbal messages, commonly received in childhood.
Often we find ourselves thinking things like ‘why does this keep happening to me’ or ‘here we go again’ Sometimes we feel that no matter what we do to try and change things we end up going round and round in circles.
As the problems are established outside of awareness, the cure must reach into the same area. This can be difficult to do as we often resist the things that we most need to face because they are painful. Instead we find we have developed a life-time’s worth of strategies to defend against them. Once insight is gained, this whole process can often seem so obvious.
I can help you identify and understand the thought processes and patterns that underpin your problems. I can help you make the necessary changes to break free of these old patterns and bring about lasting change
Psychotherapy is a rational process that anyone can understand or follow. It’s a dialogue that requires you to take an active role. I can offer ideas about what is probably going on and what seems to be happening, but ultimately, only you know what is right.
Psychotherapy isn’t always comfortable. In fact, if it doesn’t stir up a little discomfort you might not be getting anywhere. Neither is it advice. The goal of treatment is for you to discover your own voice, your own priorities, and the courage to act on them.
I adopt a non-judgemental and supportive stance and offer a pro-active, focused and dynamic approach to help you re-discover your voice, establish your own priorities and find the courage you need to act upon them. I will help you to achieve the changes you want and help you sustain those changes, helping you to respond to life’s inevitable ups and downs.
I believe it takes great courage to seek help, particularly if you are new to therapy. I have undergone extensive personal psychotherapy as part of my training and fully understand what it is like to be a client. You can be assured of a warm welcome. In the first session you will have plenty of time and space to tell me about your problems and ask any questions you might have. I will take some details, tell you a little more about me and the way I work and then, together, we can decide the best way forward. I work with a wide range of issues including relationship problems, stress and depression.
Children and Adolescents
I have completed a Master’s level training in integrative child psychotherapy at the Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education. This training included a two-year infant observation.
As an integrative child and adolescent psychotherapist I draw upon a range of theoretical frameworks to inform my work. These include psychodynamic, attachment-focussed, developmental and cognitive models. I support this work with the growing body of work within the field of neurobiology. My work is relationship-based and I make links with children and young people through the use of play, art and talking.
Children
Usually, I meet first with parents/carers to get a better understanding of the difficulties currently being experienced and to gather some background information. It is also an opportunity to discuss how I might work with your child and for you to find out more about me.
The most effective therapy requires parents and carers to be actively involved in treatment. This means I will often suggest that parents/carers attend sessions or part of sessions with their child or that they come to separate sessions. This type of whole family approach is more likely to result in a successful outcome.
Typically children struggle to put words to their feelings or to make sense of the issues that underlie them. Their communication often comes in the form of behaviour. It is often this behaviour that prompts parents or carers to seek help. These symptomatic behaviours are very varied but include such things as aggressive or destructive behaviours, withdrawing, bed-wetting and difficulty with separating. It is often very distressing for parents and carers to see their child struggling in these ways.
In therapy a child can express themselves through play and creative activities as well as talking. With the help of the parents and carers I can start to build a picture of what is troubling your child and, as a result, help them put words to their feelings and make sense of why they feel the way they do.
This helps children to feel happier and more confident in their everyday life.
Adolescents
For adolescents, I will normally meet with the young person together with their parent, parents or carers for an introductory meeting to introduce myself, gather information and talk about how I can help.
Teenagers and young people often want space to discuss what’s troubling them away from parents/carers. However, sometimes the therapy requires parents and carers to be actively involved in treatment. This means I sometimes suggest that parents/carers attend sessions or part of sessions with their child or that they come to separate sessions. This type of whole family approach can be the key to a successful outcome.
Teenagers can find themselves facing many emotional difficulties which can intrude upon both their school and home life. These emotional difficulties can exhibit themselves as angry or aggressive behaviours, feeling depressed, anxiety, self-harm, eating disorders and exploration with substance abuse. It can be very worrying and sometimes frightening to see young people experiencing these difficulties.
Talking can help young person to express themselves and give them the opportunity to understand more about their emotional needs.
Talking about the difficulties they are experiencing in a confidential, understanding, trustworthy and supporting environment will help them to understand what is happening for them emotionally and how they can look at life through a fresh lens and experiment with new ideas and ways of being.
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing
I am a level 4 trained and experienced EMDR therapist.
Research studies have repeatedly shown that EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is effective in the treatment of trauma. As such, it is a NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) and WHO (World Health Organisation) recommended psychological treatment. It is used by various services including the NHS, the emergency services, Higher Education, the police and the armed forces.
The treatment of traumatic events with the EMDR method is based upon the belief that there is a physiological component to every experience. It is believed that when an incident occurs that is “traumatic,” the overwhelming nature of the experience disturbs the brain functions required for information processing. This seems to “freeze” the information in its original anxiety-producing form, complete with the original image, negative self-assessment (for example, I’m powerless, I’m going to die etc.) and other related symptoms. Because the information has not been sufficiently processed, it continues to surface in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which may be characterized by intrusive thoughts, flashbacks (re-living the trauma), nightmares, trying to avoid anything connected to the traumatic event, extreme body reactions when we come into contact with a reminder of the trauma, constant agitation and ‘scanning’ the environment for any sign of danger.
These symptoms may be resolved through use of EMDR, as the special eye movements allow the “frozen” information to be processed and integrated as part of the normal information gathering process that we all experience after an event has occurred. The distressing memory becomes like an ordinary memory, something that occurred in the past. It is, in effect, date stamped.
EMDR has helped many people to be freed from the negative aspects of the past so that they can go about their lives without being held back.
The ‘Big’ and ‘Small’ traumas of life
It is not just life-threatening events that can feel traumatic. A tsunami or a car crash could be examples of ‘Big T’ traumas. On the other hand, losing control of your bladder aged 5 in front of the whole class and being laughed at could also be extremely upsetting. That child, as an adult, can feel very ill-at-ease whenever there is any attention directed at him (parties, public speaking, interviews etc) and perform poorly as a result. This is an example of a ‘Small t’ trauma.
EMDR is a psychotherapy that aims to help you put hurtful, tragic, humiliating, painful or frightening experiences behind you. As well as PTSD, it has been used successfully to treat a variety of problems which have their origins in negative life experiences, including anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, low self-esteem, phobias, eating disorders and complex grief.
As a practitioner I work with EMDR in a variety of ways. Before working with trauma it is very important that a client feels comfortable/safe with their therapist. The more complex and deep-rooted the trauma, the more important this is. For single event traumas, for example, a recent car crash, a brief intervention of a few sessions may be all that is needed. Where trauma is more complex and rooted in disturbing childhood experiences, I work in a more integrative way, using EMDR alongside more traditional approaches that emphasise relationship and build awareness of repeating patterns of unconscious behaviours and ways of being.
