My approach to therapy is integrative. What this means in practice is that rather than following a specific theoretical orientation, in our work together I draw from different approaches and use different tools depending on your needs, how these may change over time, and what emerges in the moment-moment process of therapy. As a result, I can be highly flexible, creative, and adaptive. It is also constantly evolving as a result of my clinical work and my ongoing professional development and interests. Below are some of the major – though by no means exhaustive – strands that I may draw upon.

Embodiment

My interest in working in an embodied way emerged out of my own growing - and often frustrating – realisation and experience that although insight and awareness are key and noble aims of the therapeutic process, change is usually elusive or short-lived unless it drops from a mental/emotional realisation into an embodied experience – until we can feel it in our body and gut, in other words.

Working with embodiment means making the body’s inner wisdom explicit, allowing it to share its experiences and history in its own language, and tapping into its natural resources and healing propensities to feel safe and grounded in the world.  I work with a range of tools and techniques from different theoretical and trauma-processing orientations, integrating them, however, creatively and organically into the therapeutic process.  

Relational Depth

Relationships are the oxygen for our psychic life and our emotional well-being, yet they also tend to be a major source of distress and suffering when they are break down or fail to give us what we need.

Working at relational depth means helping you deepen your understanding how you relate to yourself and others, the origins of those patterns (often stemming in early interactions with primary caregivers/significant others), what gets in the way as well as developing an alternative relational repertoire so that you can both ask and have your needs met in more fulfilling ways.

A lot of these patterns will most likely occur in the relationship between us, and the process of therapy can be a creative laboratory to experiment safely with different ways of relating to yourself and me as your therapist, thus acting as a stepping-stone to taking some of those new insights and relational repertoire into your other significant relationships outside therapy.  

As part of this process, I may be offering you feedback from time to time how/what I may be experiencing in our moment-to-moment interaction and which we can then explore together.

Transpersonal

Although rather difficult to define, maintaining a transpersonal/soulful approach to our work may often entail keeping the possibility open that your current difficulties, symptoms and wounds may be meaningful gateways to the depths of your soul, your hidden resources, the unique sense of what it means to be you; or the deep-seated often wordless sense that your life – despite the suffering - is deeply meaningful and sacred , that there is a there is a sense of calling or purpose you may feel drawn towards, or that it is held, supported and nourished by something bigger that extends  beyond the actual circumstances and existing structures of everyday life.

For some it may take the form of making space for the ‘sacred’ in their lives in whichever big  or small ways this may manifest – a profound love for nature and affinity with the other-than-human world, developing a spiritual or religious foundation and practice, the appreciation of beauty and the arts, or simply having a cup of tea in the sun and feeling a sense of gratitude for being alive…the possibilities are endless and different for each one of us.

This rich dimension of our work may manifest – often implicitly - through meaningful synchronicities, the exploration of dreams, hunches, or the use of ritual, literature and arts, or any other forms of creativity.

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Although these are some but not exhaustive ways we may work together, at the heart of my therapy practice is a deep admiration for the capacity of the human spirit to withstand adversity and overcome difficulties, alongside the belief that change is possible and that you can develop the resources you need to grow and feel more fulfilled - thrive even!

It will be an honour to accompany you in this journey.