MY APPROACH

Each one of us has got a collection of fears, anxieties and vulnerabilities collected since birth. We deploy any possible resource to defend against or ignore them. Psychotherapy offers a safe space where it is possible to take a closer look at them and the ways in which they have us stuck. In my experience this process offers an opening towards becoming less invested in them, more authentic and more comfortable with tolerating the uncertainties of life.

Psychotherapy has offered me the opportunity to profoundly alter the experience I have of myself by gradually becoming aware of the extent to which I had locked my vulnerability away and let my fear of it build a narrow realm around me. The work involved in psychotherapy offers the foundation for an expansion of our ways of being in life.  If listened to and supported appropriately, psychological and mental health difficulties can be deeply transformative.

I have trained to facilitate this process of acceptance and empowerment for my clients. I draw from different psychotherapeutic approaches and schools of thoughts depending on what it is needed or appropriate for different clients or at different times during therapy.

Although psychotherapy is often described as a “talking therapy”, the quality of listening it offers to a person happens at various levels.

I do listen to the body. Our body talks about us through its postures, stiffness, muscular blocks, and ways of expressing itself. All our emotions are stored in the body and it is by learning how to connect with this deep reservoir that we connect most intimately to our inner world.  

A mindful approach is embedded in my way of working. Mindfulness is a beautiful technique which guide us towards slowing down our relentless interpreting, analysing, judging and comparing. This disruptive constant chatter keeps us in the grips of anxiety and takes us away from what we are experiencing in the present.

I am more comfortable describing psychotherapy as an open dialogue or a “dance” which at time focuses on words and meaning, at times pays attention to the body, it might work with metaphors and images or deal with silence.

The scope of therapy is to show us a path to a lighter, more peaceful and vital way of being.