A safe, trusting, honest & respectful environment
I believe that it’s the nature of the relationship established between therapist and client that drives and determines the healing and recovery in therapy.
I endeavor to create a safe, trusting, respectful and honest relationship, in which each client feels accepted, deeply heard and empathically understood. I am guided by the wisdom of my intuition, my emotional reactions, as well as by the breadth of my theoretical knowledge and clinical experience, to walk alongside each client on their individual and unique paths towards well being.
I gently work with clients to analyze and formulate their individual stories, exploring, naming, understanding, expressing and processing deeply painful beliefs, thoughts and feelings that have been contributing to and maintaining self limiting patterns of interacting with the self and others. The awareness and understandings gained through the process of therapy empowers clients with the choice and freedom to do things differently.
My therapeutic interventions are an integration of the following approaches, which are flexibly applied and tailored according to the needs of each client.
Cognitive Analytic Therapy
Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is a time limited (16-24 sessions) collaborative approach to identifying and resolving self limiting patterns of reacting that are reducing well being and holding one back in life.
Particular focus is given to understanding the origin of presenting problems in terms of earlier life and relationships in childhood. Certain experiences growing up may have led to intense and overwhelming feelings which were managed or survived by learning to relate to oneself and others in particular ways, like striving to please others at own expense, or striving to be perfect to feel acknowledged.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive Behavioural therapy (CBT) focuses on negative patterns of thinking about oneself, the world and other people and how these negative thoughts affect your feelings and how you react and behave.
Daily records are used to help build awareness of negative thinking patterns and their impact on mood and behavior, with cognitive strategies then being taught to help revise and balance the distorted thinking styles. Session times can range from 6-24 sessions to address and resolve presenting difficulties.
Person Centered Psychotherapy
Person Centred Psychotherapy (PCP) is a humanistic approach that believes that recovery and healing comes from a person being unconditionally accepted, feeling safe from judgment and criticism and being deeply heard and understood by a person who is genuine and transparent.
This approach therefore is based more on the attitude of the therapist rather than the techniques used by the therapist, with the therapeutic relationship being the medium by which early conditions of worth that created suffering are challenged and revised. The duration of therapy is determined by the needs of each client, with the goal of sessions being self actualization.
Art Therapy
Art therapy is the use of creative processes such as art making, drawing or painting to improve or maintain mental health and emotional well being. This approach aims to help clients find a form of expressing their inner thoughts, feelings and images which might be difficult to access and express in words or by the more traditional ‘talk therapy’ approaches.
The therapeutic art image enhances the client’s capacity to verbally name and discuss their experiences with the therapist and others and work towards gaining insights, resolving conflicts, and formulating new perceptions that in turn lead to positive changes, growth and healing.