It can be difficult to know where to begin when reading therapist profiles. Most of us work with the challenges of being human: anxiety, depression, anxiety, loneliness, career and professional concerns, relationship problems, questions of meaning, the persistent sense that something does not feel quite right. What might be most useful for you to know is how I actually think about therapy, and what it might be like to work with me.
I was called to psychotherapy in part due to my interest in how we come to be who we are, the relationships and experiences that have shaped us, and what can become possible when we begin to understand ourselves more deeply.
Usually, our patterns have developed for good reasons. Understanding them can create more freedom to decide what still serves you and what no longer does. As such, your experience is the heart of our work, and I offer a stable, supportive presence alongside you.
The relationship between therapist and client is central to my approach, offering a place where familiar patterns can be experienced and understood in new ways. Where relationships are often a source of great difficulty, they are also spaces in which we can heal. Holding a natural openness to the complexity of each individuals life, I see therapy as something we do together. My style is compassionate, curious, direct and willing to think with you. I attend to what is spoken and known, but also to feelings, patterns and experiences that may be harder to recognise or find words for.
Influenced by Jungian thought, I also pay close attention to the unconscious, the imaginative and the symbolic aspects of your inner life. Dreams, imagery, creativity and fantasy all find a place in this work, alongside the emotional and bodily experience of therapy. Psychotherapy might raise questions of identity, meaning and spirituality, including the influence of culture, family and religion on how we understand ourselves and the lives we create. In the process of individuation, psychotherapy helps to bring more of ourselves into conscious awareness.
I have extensive experience in working with addiction and 12-Step recovery, early life and family trauma, grief, relationship difficulties, codependence and relational abuse. My work has also encompassed sexuality and sexual identity, difficulties around sex and intimacy, and I have particular interests in gender, identity and the complexities of intimate relationships.
I hold an MA in Integrative Psychotherapy from the University of Roehampton, and am BACP registered.