My relational approach to psychotherapy involves understanding, and providing support for, the whole of you. Typically, we abandon parts of ourselves as ‘not ok’ or ‘unacceptable’ as people around us might have done when we were younger, and these parts often contain the life force and energy for change in our lives. As a psychotherapist, I consider all of your patterns and behaviours in a light of how they were appropriate and helpful creative adjustments to an environment that wasn’t able to support you in a way you needed at that time.
Together, we pay attention to your physical and psychological processes and how they link together. Working relationally means that I bring myself into the therapeutic relationship with you as another human being, sharing my responses, thoughts and feelings with you. If it feels helpful to you, I use our relationship as a way of raising your awareness of how you might be relating with and experiencing the world around you.
Mainly I’ll listen and ask questions, but I’ll also share my thoughts, feelings and personal experience when appropriate. I’ll be myself in our relationship, not a blank screen or someone who is sorted, but another human who also suffers.
I charge £65-75 per 50 minute session.
I'm a qualified and UKCP registered psychotherapist, and have been working in Bristol since 2014, originally in the field of addiction. Prior to becoming a psychotherapist, I worked with organisations as a coach and facilitator for over 15 years, and then in my 40s trained in a five-year MSc in Gestalt (a humanistic approach) at Metanoia Institute, Middlesex University.
I provide a supportive and private place for you to explore the challenges you are facing, and I work with clients in a broad range of issues; from people in a life crisis who need to talk to someone, to people who want to spend time exploring and discovering more of who they are, or wanting to make lasting changes in areas of life they feel stuck in.
My approach involves supporting you to explore areas of interest to you, and to increase your self-awareness through non-judgemental acceptance. I firmly believe our personality now was a positive response to the environment we faced when the original adjustment was made, and through understanding this you can begin to reclaim parts of you that are important but might have been forgotten. My Gestalt approach can also involve helping you to use your body as a way to access hidden emotions.
I am well supported in individual and group supervision and abide by the UKCP ethical framework and code of practice, and my personal interest in mindfulness and meditation can inform our work.
‘This member has completed UKCP Covid-19 Online Working Guidance’
Like all UKCP registered psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors I can work with a wide range of issues, but here are some areas in which I have a special interest or additional experience.
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