What I Offer

“The principle aim of psychotherapy is not to transport one to an impossible state of happiness, but to help the client acquire steadfastness and patience in the face of suffering” 

– C.G. Jung

My Psychotherapy Approach

In my practice as an integrative psychotherapist, I offer a therapeutic relationship that affirms creative renewal, integration and wholeness, by encouraging clarity and mindfulness in the development of self-compassion and awareness of our inner compass that stirs our choice making abilities. 

I draw on psychodynamic, existential, attachment – relational, humanistic, trauma, cognitive, transpersonal, neuroscience perspectives and insights, and in my work with children I apply play-therapy modalities. 

A core interest I have is in the coping strategies and beliefs that can be triggered by distress, neglect and trauma, which can compromise self-esteem and the image one has of themselves, diminish our expectations of life relationships, which is a factor in the development of various compulsions and addictions.

By learning to stably meet and parent our distress, we can find greater clarity, peace and lightness, affirm self-acceptance, and anchor emotional security, to better nurture our life relationship needs and make choices in our lives which are more balanced and fair.

My Supervision Approach

I supervise both qualified and experienced psychotherapists and counsellors as well as those who are still in training. I think at best supervision nurtures a culture of high support and high challenge. It is often encouraging, at times instructive, educative and always takes into account, and account of, the relationship between supervisor and supervisee, and the matrix of supervisor, supervisee and client.
Developing self awareness is a key element to a sound supervision; this means as well as working with the client material, part of the focus is with the therapist’s process, including body awareness, embodied transference, parallel process and meta-communication. There is an educative dimension to supervision, experiential and at times skills based learning.  

EMDR Therapy

EMDR is a powerful psychological treatment method that was developed by an American clinical psychologist, Dr Francine Shapiro, in the 1980s. As a Senior Research Fellow at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, USA, she published the first research data to support its benefits in 1989. There has been a wealth of research conducted demonstrating its benefits in treating psychological trauma and PTSD arising from experiences as diverse as war related experiences, childhood sexual and/or physical abuse or neglect, natural disaster, assault, surgical trauma, road traffic accidents and workplace accidents. Since its original development, EMDR is also increasingly used to help individuals with other issues including phobias, anxiety, pain management, phantom limb pain and depression. EMDR has also been found to be of benefit to children, those with learning difficulties, clients with language barriers or those that can’t give details of the trauma.

When a person is involved in a distressing event, they may feel overwhelmed and, therefore, their brain may be unable to process the information like a normal memory. The distressing memory seems to become frozen on a neurological level. When a person recalls the distressing memory, the person can re-experience what they saw, heard, smelt, tasted, thought or felt, and this can be quite intense. Sometimes the memories are so distressing that the person tries to avoid thinking about the distressing event to avoid experiencing the distressing feelings. Some find that the distressing memories come to mind when something reminds them of the distressing event, or sometimes the memories just seem to just pop into mind without warning. The alternating left-right stimulation of the brain with eye movements, sounds or taps during EMDR, seems to stimulate the frozen or blocked information processing system.  In the process the memories seem to lose their intensity, so they become less distressing and seem more like ‘ordinary’ memories.

The effect is believed to be similar to that which occurs naturally during REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement) when your eyes rapidly move from side to side. EMDR helps reduce the distress of all the different kinds of memories, whether it is images, sounds, smells, tastes, physical sensations, thoughts or beliefs.