My Approach

In this section, I share my Integrative, Relational and Embodied stances, exploring throughout a non dual perspective and what you might hope to gain from working with me.

Finally I explain,how I approach Couples Therapy.

My Approach

Integrative

An integrative approach as I see it, is a synthesetic model. I am inspired by a multitude of psychotherapeutic modalities, each helping to complement and support my work.

I also take inspiration from influences as broad as science, philosophy, religion, spirituality, eastern thought, Buddhism, shamanism and magic.

Fundamentally it allows me the capability of holding diametrically opposing ideas in relation to each other, and therefore tailoring how I work with each person. For example:

Phenomenological (Existential)

open and curious stance, helping you tease out your experience

Interpretive (Psychoanalytic)

stance, offering you a perspective of what I think is happening

Creating safety and a colloborative therapeutic allaince

Venturing into challenging and charged places

Exploring one's past, learning to integrate it

Imagining and planning one's future, working towards growth

Telling one's story

Experientially feeling together, experiencing emotions in the here and now.

Working with the conscious material emerging in the session

Whilst simultaneously listening to the unconscious emerging, to do this I listen beyond what is being said and pay attention to my own body and associations

Embodied

The embodied aspect of my practice recognises that we are an integrated mind and body, and that our experiences move between these two channels. The body can hold stress, tension, trauma and emotions when they become too much for our psyche to process.

By exploring this together, we may become aware of where energetic charge is held, or notice areas that feel blocked, tense or numb. By gently giving these parts of the body space to be felt and expression, we can begin to release areas of tension.

We may also explore the use of the breath, noticing whether our breathing feels full and unrestricted, or whether it feels shallow, constricted or trapped. By developing awareness of our breath, we can learn ways of regulating our nervous system and becoming more grounded and connected to ourselves.

Relational

exploring them together, we can develop greater awareness of how these patterns shape your relationships and, importantly, create more choice around whether you continue to repeat them.

I believe this is one of therapy’s greatest gifts, not an unrealistic expectation that we can erase or completely heal our past, but a deeper understanding of our wounds and the capacity to care for and soothe ourselves differently in the present.

I also make my own mind-body awareness available within sessions as a clinical resource. Paying attention to what arises in my own embodied experience can sometimes provide clues about feelings or aspects of your experience that have not yet become conscious or found words, offering another way for us to explore what is happening between us.

A relational stance involves acknowledging that, as a practitioner, I am an active participant in the therapeutic process. This represents a departure from the more traditional ‘blank screen’ approach. It does not mean that I engage in frequent self-disclosure; in fact, I very rarely self-disclose, as I do not generally believe this is helpful to the therapeutic process. Rather, it means that I remain attentive and open to what is happening in the here and now between us.

As therapy progresses, deep feelings can emerge particularly around earlier life and family relationships, I may sometimes come to represent someone from your past. Through transference, you may experience me as demanding or neglectful, feel a strong desire to please me, or become frustrated or angry with me. Rather than being something to fear or avoid, these experiences can offer valuable insight into unconscious relational patterns. By

I draw on attachment theory and psychoanalysis to ground my practice. Attachment theory highlights that our relationships with our parents or primary caregivers are among our earliest and most fundamental needs. These early relationships become templates for how we experience ourselves and others. Given the vulnerability and dependency of childhood, it is natural that some of these relational patterns may resurface when we later form intimate relationships of our own. Together, we can explore how these patterns may be influencing your relationship in the present.

Psychoanalytic thinking recognises that relationships are co-constructed between two people. Over time, these dynamics can become locked, enmeshed and almost impenetrable. Theory such as the “do-er, done to” positions, in which both parties feel “done to” by the other simultaneously, can make understanding what is happening incredibly difficult. My role is not to take sides, but to create a ‘third space’ where the three of us can think together about what is happening between you. Through developing this shared understanding, my hope is that, over time, you can begin to create this space for yourselves without me.

Couples Therapy

In couples therapy, I work slightly differently from the way I work in individual therapy. Firstly, I am in service of you as a couple. This means that when something emerges for either partner, I think with you about how it may be impacting the relationship as a whole. I also take a more active role, sometimes interjecting or slowing things down to help both partners hear and understand each other.