My Approach

I draw upon a range of theories that are grounded in psychodynamic and humanistic-existential traditions and philosophies. Using our relationship to understand you, I won't tell you what to do; collaboratively we will find meaning through exploration and reflection. With compassion and no judgement, I will offer a safe space. I will listen to the ‘what’, but also the ‘how’; how you share your story as you connect with the experience of yourself during the process. This will lead to a deeper understanding of your subjective truth, and to the development of greater self-awareness and self-knowledge. 

With curiosity and interest I’ll sense, wonder, and notice all responses – verbal and non-verbal. We’ll work with body language, fantasies, and dreams. The role of silence and pause, imagery, metaphors, code words, and other creative exchanges will be welcomed to access the unknown and to make meaning of what they may symbolise and represent. I’ll challenge and encourage. Exploring your external worldview, we’ll turn inward and reflect. What is rigid and fixed, we’ll use spontaneity allowing flexibility and flow. What makes no sense, we’ll look for reason. What is objective, we’ll search for the subjective. By creating space for all messages, a deeper understanding of their purpose and your internal worldview will develop. 

What emerges in our relationship will reflect how you relate in the world. Verbal and non-verbal felt responses between us - including tensions and discomfort - will be welcomed for closer exploration. In subtle, in-depth ways, resistance, intellectualisation, humour, and other forms of defence will be explored to make sense of their motive. Examining what is being transferred or projected onto the therapeutic relationship allows access to what lies beneath the surface, identifying relational wounds in need of healing. 

Each of us are made up of parts. I will welcome and strive to meet all. Together, we’ll search for lost connections; those parts of self once punished, shamed, or dismissed. We’ll work with your inner child, shadow side, and self-states. We’ll dialogue with those in conflict, helping to reconnect with lost parts of your authentic self. We’ll tend to paradoxes that may be disclosed through behaviours, feelings, thoughts, bodily, and spiritual expression. I will encourage the integration of all parts of self, in facilitating a sense of wholeness that can be immensely healing as you embrace a more holistic view of yourself.

When our needs are not met or negated, when relationships fail to connect with where we are, we can lose trust and feel pain. Ruptures in the therapy space are a valuable part of the healing process. They can serve as key messages from your relational template accessed live in the here-and-now. If negative feelings play out between us, they’ll be welcomed for first-hand exploration. By expressing disappointment, frustration, or anger to me, we can identify emotional unmet needs at their core. This process will help to fully repair, heal and move on. Having your authentic feelings listened to and positively met - this time non-defensively and with compassion - we will stay connected. This healing connection repairs and models a new relational experience that will go on to restore emotional communication and maturity.

Through a constant process of becoming, facilitated by the experience of the therapeutic relationship, you will gain greater self-knowledge and understanding of your relational template and emotional needs. Experienced in the strategies that protect them, you will identify the relational wounds that contribute to present day challenges. Understanding what was absent from significant others, now met in the presence of no judgement and blame but encouragement and interest, you will have a new healing experience. It is through the process of this new experience that you can fully identify those responses that no longer serve and obstruct living life in full. Defences once employed to protect, will now weaken letting in instead an emotional nourishment that will sustain your integrated self, outside of the therapy room. This more compassionate, accepting ‘re-parenting’ process will lead to a more resilient, secure, and autonomous self. Seeking healthier emotional attachments means you will no longer live a version of yourself based on what others want you to be. Instead, a sense of reconnection with your authentic self and needs, will replace what was formerly not quite real about your way-of-being in the world.