About My Approach

I bring over ten years of experience as a working psychotherapist in both private practice and agency settings. I have worked successfully with a diverse range of clients bringing issues including depression, stuckness, low self esteem, eating issues, sexual and relationship problems, meaninglessness, and many other life issues and problems.

Psychotherapy works by providing a supportive relationship which can catalyse and resource your own inherent and instinctive ability to move forward creatively in your life. The therapist's skill lies in helping to create this space through careful and attentive listening, reflection and dialogue to facilitate new insights and the evolution of next steps.

All of us have our own innate wisdom, healing and creative capacity, but it can get blocked and sometimes we can get stuck or seem to repeat painful and destructive patterns. Or perhaps we are overtaken by depression and meaninglessness. Core Process Psychotherapy can enable us to see how we create these patterns of feeling, thinking and relating as survival strategies, which often have their roots in early trauma but are also perhaps ways of avoiding facing our existential predicament. We can start to get free of limiting patterns when we address both early trauma AND the choices we are making about how to live our lives, now.

Core Process work is underpinned by a holistic sense of the person and of life as constantly moving processes. This movement can create suffering if resisted or grasped onto, but if fully embraced has the potential to open into freedom and a creative response. Re-connection to and alignment with this aspect of the life force is an essential part of the healing process.

The work is especially powerful when, through mindful attention in the present moment, we can get a direct sense of how we are shaping ourselves and our world here and now. This creates space and choice where none previously existed.

Perhaps the most important benefit of good psychotherapy is the that clients learn to be their own 'therapist'. In other words, you will find over time that your relationship to yourself changes for the better. You become more able to befriend your experience, even when that experience is difficult. This equips you to deal better with life's ups and downs and to embody more of your potential in each sphere of your life.

Time For You

That usually takes time: time to get the necessary perspective and insight, to process the feelings, to mourn what has been lost, and to allow these learnings and new understandings to inform and be expressed in our lives. The beauty of open-ended, process based therapy is that it allows this time and gives space for a deep transformation.

This is of course not always necessary. Sometimes just a subtle re-alignment or re-working is all that's needed to get you back on track. So short-term work can be very helpful. I usually recommend 6 sessions to begin with.

Background and Influences

Influences on my work include Buddhism, Focusing, artwork and shamanic practice, all of which form part of my personal experience and training. From Buddhism comes an awareness that we are always changing: we are a process rather than a fixed 'thing'. So creative change is always possible. From Focusing comes a trust in the body-mind's wisdom. Trusting and following the 'felt sense' will take you forward quite naturally in the direction that is right for you. From artwork comes a trust in the depths of the psyche. It is amazing what comes from working with the arts. New, undreamed of insights and ways forward. From shamanic practice comes a trust in our interconnection with all of life and with wellsprings of natural healing and wisdom.

Of course, simply talking and being listened to, encouraged and, where appropriate, challenged in a respectful way, brings a loosening up of stuck places and opens the path forward.

Many 'techniques' work, but not all work for everyone. We can work with awareness in the moment, dreams, artwork, Focusing - as well as a solution-focused, pragmatic exploration of the issues. In this way you can gain insight, perspective and self-acceptance and be supported and encouraged to take whatever actions you need to take to follow your own path.

For more of a sense of how I work and the perspective I bring please take a look at the Articles page of this website.

Feel free to call me if you would like to ask anything, or to make an initial appointment to explore things with me.