Therapeutic approach
Integrative psychotherapy
Integrative psychotherapy draws on multiple models of therapy, including psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, existential and humanistic. This range enables me think about what you may be struggling with from different perspectives, so I can best support and empower you as an individual.
‘Integration’ is underpinned by a focus on the development of the Self, which can be conceptualised as a ‘container’ of human experience. During therapy, we would welcome multiple parts of your Self to the therapy to foster change, including parts that may be hidden or disavowed.
Psychotherapy can surface difficult and unconscious feelings, memories and experiences. By staying with the process, therapy can be an expansive and enriching journey of discovery. This can enable a person to find a path through their suffering and experience greater agency, meaning and fulfilment in their daily lives and relationships.
Counselling psychology
Counselling psychology is a discipline based on seeing people in a very respectful, humanising, and valuing way, rather than pathologising or medicalising their suffering. It is built upon values of fairness, equality and social justice to meet the psychological needs of all people, which are values that I align to as a person and practitioner.
Counselling psychology is concerned with the integration of psychological theory and research with therapeutic practice. My approach pays careful attention to:
- The therapeutic relationship
- Relational trauma, complex trauma and PTSD
- The mind-body connection
While my approach is informed by psychotherapeutic theory and research, I believe that to grapple with the complexity of the human condition during therapy requires us to draw on a broader, enriching body of knowledge including philosophy, literature, poetry and the arts. If we work together, I may invite you to bring pieces that speak to your lived experience. Where talking doesn’t reach a feeling, emotion or memory, I can offer creative ways of working with your experience, which speak to an aspect of who you are. For example, this may include exploring dreams and images.