My Approach
I completed my training as a psychotherapist in 2002.
My core model is Gestalt. This is a fully integrative approach taking all of you into account. It involves an exploration of the experiences of any issue that you bring, so that you can develop a deeper awareness of your own thoughts and beliefs, your feelings, your physical responses and your behaviour. I will listen attentively to you and let you know what I have heard. I will check things out with you and encourage you to say more with gentle, focused questions. I see therapy as an active, interactive process between us so, if you are interested, I will sometimes share what I am noticing in myself as I listen to you – my thoughts, images, feelings or ideas that come to mind. I would then see what it was like for you to hear what I’ve said. I may suggest things to try out in the room to increase your awareness of what you are exploring at the time eg. ‘On a scale of 0-10 how much do you want to do that?’ ‘If you imagine speaking to your partner right now what happens to you?’ We would then look at where that takes you and how that might effect what you might do in the world outside the room.
The Gestalt principles of dialogue, context and subjective experience provide my foundational framework. However, I have been able to integrate knowledge and ideas from studying and reflecting on many other approaches over the last thirty years. I will offer you what comes to mind but it is always up to you. I will hopefully provide the right environment for you to find your way forward to greater clarity and agency in your life.
My qualifications
MSc and Diploma in Gestalt Psychotherapy
Certificate in Supervision
Graduate of The Couples Institute
EMDR Advanced Training
PG Diploma in Facilitator Styles
Advanced Certificate in Counselling
PG Diploma in Careers Guidance
PG Certificate in Education
BSc Hons Psychology
I have also trained in:
IFS – Internal Family System Mode
Deep Brain Re-orienting (DBR)
Systemic Constellations
Background
My interest in understanding how people live and make sense of their lives (including my own) led me to study psychology as a first degree in 1972. I then followed a career in education – teaching, careers guidance and lecturing in further and higher education. During that time I facilitated many self-development groups including assertiveness, counselling skills, emotional literacy, parenting, self-esteem and stress management. I completed a two-year counselling training in 1987. In 1997 I began a further five years’ training in psychotherapy which involved looking in depth at understanding the human condition from various view points and in deepening and broadening my ways of working with people.
“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life;not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens”
Kahil Gibran