Family life can be full of drama, from adolescent struggles to parental conflict, from family feuds to experiences of love and loss. When families are faced with problems and experience difficulties in their relationships, self-help is often the first natural response. However, sometimes, self-help is not enough and can lead families to feel stuck. It is at this point that it can be beneficial to access professional help.
My approach to working with families is to see each member as an individual, who is influenced by multiple contexts, including family, financial, cultural, and historical ones. I like to understand people within these frameworks and not as separate from them. I am interested in understanding problems through hearing the stories that families share with me and to think together with them about how these stories define the difficulties which bring them to therapy. I see storytelling as an important component of the therapeutic process, allowing family members to consider the possibility of creating a new story which may allow for healing, growth and help to strengthen families ties, or clarify differences. I encourage families to see therapy less as a “cure” but more as a process which sets something in motion. As a therapist I see my role as helping you to navigate unfamiliar territory, experiment with new scenarios but as a family, you then make the decision about the direction you choose to go in.
I have dual professional training in social work and family therapy. I have over ten years of wide-ranging experience working with complex child, adolescent, adult, and family issues. Previously, I have worked as an expert witness for the family courts where serious concerns of child protection were raised. I currently work for the NHS in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, as a family psychotherapist. I work with adolescents struggling with depression, anxiety and trauma and work with issues relating to parents, parenting and children. I provide short and long-term psychotherapy for families, couples and offer individual work. I am in the process of doing a professional doctorate at the Tavistock Centre; my research looks at how to support doctors, patients, and their families to have conversations about illness and the end of life. I have experience of working with families from diverse backgrounds and understand the importance of working sensitively with social, cultural, and religious differences as well as age, disability, race, sexual orientation, gender, and relationship status.
In the face of the Covid-19 crisis, we are currently living in exceedingly difficult times. Please feel free to contact me via telephone for a free no obligation 30-minute consultation to discuss your issues in strict confidence. In line with government guidelines to stop the spread of COVID-19, I am currently offering sessions remotely only.
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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