What to expect
Therapy is a place to explore and work through emotional distress. Whatever brings you to seek support, whether it is a trauma, a relationship breakdown, a life transition that feels hard, or perhaps a general feeling of unease that you wish to explore, I will work alongside you to provide a safe, confidential and non-judgemental space for you to bring your whole self and together we will figure out the source of your discomfort and ways to heal.
It can be challenging at times, but it will very likely also be joyful, exhilarating and reparative.
There is no time frame, some people wish to see me for a short period and work on a particular problem and others may wish to work longer term. I am trained in both and we will decide together what works for you.
The first time we meet we will talk through what you hope to gain from therapy and what to expect, there is no requirement to continue together after this session unless we both agree.
Therapeutic healing is most effective with regular and consistent attendance. So a commitment to weekly sessions is the first step.
What is psychodynamic counselling?
Psychodynamic counselling brings in past experiences, maybe around childhood and younger years or past experiences that may have been traumatic and seeks to understand how they are still impacting you today. This may show up in your current life as patterns of behaviour or emotions or memories that you feel hard to let go of. An important part of the therapy is the relationship between counsellor and client and sometimes, as well as exploring more generally what's happening for you and looking at techniques and changes you can make in the immediate, we may also bring in things that happen within our relationship ttoo. What happens in the room may be reflecting what's happening in your life outside and we can use the safety of our relationship in which to explore that.
Understanding how our past impacts us, helps us to feel free to make different choices and have different experiences as adults.
What is EMDR?
EMDR Is an abrieviation for Eye Movement Disensitization and Reprocessing.
When a person is involved in a traumatic event, they may feel overwhelmed and their brain may be unable to fully process what is going on. The memory of the event seems to become “stuck” so that it remains very intense and vivid. The person can re-experience what they saw, heard and smelt and the full force of the distress they felt whenever the memory comes to mind.
EMDR aims to help the brain “unstick” and reprocess the memory properly so that it is no longer so intense. It also helps to desensitise the person to the emotional impact of the memory, so that they can think about the event without experiencing such strong feelings.
It does this by asking the person to recall the traumatic event while they also move their eyes from side-to-side, hear a sound in each ear alternately, or feel a tap on each hand alternately. These side-to-side sensations seem to effectively stimulate the “stuck” processing system in the brain so that it can reprocess the information more like an ordinary memory, reducing its intensity.
EMDR can also be used to help treat a variety of mental health problems like depression or anxiety, especially where a difficult life event has been involved. EMDR can be useful for people who have witnessed or experienced an event like a car accident, a violent crime, sexual or emotional abuse, bullying, a social humiliation or the sudden loss of a loved one, and are struggling to recover.
Is your service accessible for all?
I offer low cost sessions for those on low income.
My therapy room is on the bottom floor, so access to the therapy room is through my front door and along a narrow hallway. My toilet is upstairs so this would make accessibility difficult for some.
I can offer online sessions for anyone who would struggle to see me in person.
I am LGBTQ+ friendly, which means that I hold in mind that lived experiences such a biphobia, transphobia, and other forms of prejudice and discrimination experienced by clients are real and significant forms of structural inequality and may be part of what brings you to therapy.