There are many reasons why people seek out counselling and psychotherapy:

–  Feeling stuck in your life
–  Feeling overwhelmed and need some support
–  Needing support as you move through transitions or life stages
–  Needing help understanding and managing strong emotions
–  Needing a neutral person to share and explore sensitive issues with
–  To address depression, anxiety, stress, fears, phobias, addictions
–  To heal from traumas past and present
–  Grief and loss
–  Communication and conflict difficulties
–  Self sabotage and unhelpful behaviour patterns
–  To understand your inner world and integrate different aspects of yourself
–  To rediscover your inner strengths and resources
–  To develop more self love, acceptance, appreciation and joy
–  To deepen ones capacity for intimacy and conscious relating
……and the list continues

Generally speaking, counselling is a brief process (up to 15 session) that can help you to clarify and create greater emotional space for reflecting on your situation, which can help in decision making, problem solving, emotion management and more possibilities for change. I have many therapeutic ‘tools’ to help create change but the process of sharing this journey with another person in a safe relationship, with clear boundaries, is often where most of the healing comes from. In addition to this, the major factor in you transforming your situation is the attitude you bring, your openness to try something new, to learn, to trust and to bring a bit more energy when you feel its almost gone.

Psychotherapy is considered a longer therapeutic process, (20 sessions and beyond) that aims to transform old habits and ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that have endured for a long time, often from traumatic, abusive or neglectful experiences in relationships earlier in ones life. The therapeutic relationship is often central to this transformation. In saying that, I have also worked with many people who have transformed entrenched difficulties quite quickly, so it is not always the way that significant change must take a lot of time and investment.   

The position I take when it comes to supporting people experiencing difficulties and pain in their life is to understand their situation from a bio-psycho-social perspective. That is:
Biological factors – life stage /development, lifestyle/ diet/ exercise, biological /neurological processors etc.
Psychological factors – Information processing, emotion regulation, character traits, core beliefs, values, emotions, behaviour etc.
Social factors – Relationships, family environment past and present, support system, other services involved, disadvantage etc.

Despite my primary professional training being in social work and couple & family therapy, I consider myself an integrative clinician. Meaning over many years of practice and training I draw on many modalities to suit what the client, and the process we are in requires in each moment. Some of these evidence based approaches I draw on include, cognitive, behavioural, mindfulness/ acceptance based, systemic, narrative, solution focused, emotion focused, experiential, gestalt, psychodynamic, trauma processing (EMDR, EFT, somatic), attachment based, person centred, collaborative/ dialogical, relational psychotherapy etc.

Learn more about my work with Trauma – CLICK HERE
Learn more about my work with EMDR  –  CLICK HERE
Learn more about my work with Attachment –  CLICK HERE