At times we all need extra support and help with overcoming difficulties. I work relationally and offer professional, skilled psychotherapy to address the challenges that life brings. I trained integratively and I work to encourage the process of self-exploration and discovery that happens within the relationship between myself and my client.
Often clients are trapped in the same repeating negative patterns, unable to achieve their goals, nothing feels like it is working out. I can help you gain the clarity and the direction needed for change and for growth. Research shows that we are the most in-debt, obese, medicated and addicted adults in human history, and like violence, poverty and inequality, it is one of the greatest societal challenges we all face today.
Psychotherapy helps clients move through defense structures and into self-expression for the purpose of healing. Many of us no longer need the walls we built to protect ourselves but would never risk taking them down alone. We often have lists of ways in which we numb ourselves emotionally, we stay busy, we live so fast that the truth of our lives often cannot catch up with us. We often fill every space so there is no room left for the emotion to make itself known. Whatever we use to numb out from the dark, also numbs out the light, so our experiences of joy, love and trust will be duller too. Numbing compulsively and chronically is addictive.
Many of us lock our hurt away, we stockpile it until we cannot sleep, eat or focus or we grow so depressed we cannot get out of bed. Counselling and psychotherapy can free you, it can liberate you from the isolation and loneliness of living with what can often seem unbearable.
A key advantage of integrative counselling is its flexibility and focus on the whole of an individual. The integration of different approaches means therapy can be tailored to meet a variety of needs and concerns. It can be particularly beneficial for those who want to overcome negative patterns of behaviour caused by anxieties, fears, phobias or any other mental health issue that is greatly impacting life satisfaction (i.e. addictions, depression, past and current trauma, bereavement and low self-esteem). It has also been found useful in improving daily function in children with autism and learning difficulties. Often these problems can affect the four dimensions of human functioning – affective, behavioural, cognitive, and physiological systems.