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Stephanie White

Bristol BS1
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Stephanie White

Bristol BS1
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My Approach

My training is in Humanistic and Integrative psychotherapy. As part of this we were encouraged to develop our own integration, that is, to bring into our practice ideas from psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic writers and theorists to whom we felt drawn. As part of my integration I also practise CBT/REBT, and this work is held within the framework of my primary psychotherapy training.

Initially, I will work with you in building a therapeutic relationship of trust, where my role is to provide you with a safe, consistent space where you feel able to discuss your material, and to facilitate this exploration. During our time together we'll explore what has brought you to therapy, and look to both address your presenting issues whilst investigating how your responses to early life experiences may have set up patterns of relating to yourself, the world and others. These patterns of relating may have been important to your survival in childhood but in adulthood may be inhibiting your growth and potential.

I am interested in working with imagery and metaphor (for example images or characters from films, books, poetry or art) as this can sometimes be a useful way of capturing something that may be difficult to put into words, and may provide illuminating insights. If this interests you too then we may be able to incorporate it into our dialogue, if opportunities arise. We may also incorporate visualisations, Inner Child work, and Compassion focused work, if appropriate.

I have an interest in Jung, and often incorporate myth and fairytale as a means to amplify the work. I am interested in working with dreams and am open to the transpersonal (for example-spiritual beliefs).

I am also interested in how you may experience feelings energetically, in your body.

Over the last few years I have been working more and more with people who experience themselves as neurodivergent. I work with each person as an individual and we use this experience of neurodivergence as a 'lens' through which to look at the self in relation to others and the world (and also to the self), in order to search for understanding and meaning, all held within the context of the person's unique history.

Whilst the work is a serious undertaking, there will not be an absence of humour; I do not regard the two as mutually exclusive.

About Me

Qualified, experienced and UKCP registered psychotherapist offering person-centred psychotherapy with individuals. I also offer CBT/REBT as part of my integration (Diploma and Advanced Diploma from the College of Cognitive Behavioural Therapies, London).

I'm a person who is interested in people. A childhood spent reading myths and fairytales and watching films on BBC2 on Saturday afternoons, coupled with skills developed and arising from my own early childhood background laid the groundwork for a potential career in psychotherapy. However, this therapy chicken did not come home to roost until my mid-forties, when I began training at Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling for a Diploma and Masters in Humanistic and Integrative psychotherapy, and it felt like coming home- I had found my vocation and my congruence. I am now qualified and UKCP registered as a full clinical member, with 10,000+ client hours and in my eleventh year of busy private practice where I have worked with a diverse group of clients bringing a broad spectrum of issues.

I work with

  • Individuals

Special Interests

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.

The later decades of life can bring recalibrations ranging from the minor to the seismic. Redundancy, retirement, estrangement from children/grandchildren to name but some. There may be disturbance around physical ageing in general, or managing and making sense of a later onset physical or mental condition and/or disability. Losing a partner or spouse, either through sudden death, the ongoing loss process of dementia, or other life-limiting condition, may give rise to a complex tapestry of grieving (and anger), both for the person who is no longer there and also for the loss of a retirement that would have been spent with their life companion. Conversely, later life relationship breakdown, the death of friends, can bring feelings of isolation, loneliness, and dislocation from the modern world. Some people, in the later decades of life, may choose to explore and evaluate their life and its experiences, maybe for the first time. It is never too late to explore and have hope for growth and change.
Anxiety can feel overwhelming and in itself generate further anxiety, leading to a spiral of intrusive thoughts and sometimes a shut down. A CBT/REBT approach can be useful in stabilising and tackling anxiety in day to day life. This may incorporate aspects of mindfulness. From a more psychotherapeutic/ psychoanalytic perspective, anxiety can be viewed as the guardian of your unconscious: a warning that you are in imminent threat of experiencing uncomfortable or distressing emotions that you may have been working very hard to suppress. We often start work with this CBT/REBT approach, which gives some understanding of what anxiety is and how it operates and this may incorporate practical tools to challenge and reframe habitual thought patterns. This also seems to deconstruct the anxiety and allows the client to move from overwhelm to hope of change. We would then move on to looking deeper, for the genesis of this feeling of danger, and look at earlier experiences and patterns of relating in order to develop an understanding of why it was useful for the individual to develop this response.
I have worked with clients diagnosed with a variety of chronic physical illnesses, often auto-immune in nature, and have had a chronic autoimmune condition for most of my life. Client's may struggle with self-perception (especially if diagnosis and physical changes occur in adulthood), and how they are perceived by others. There is also often a grieving process, and anger, at losing aspects of the self, and a life that may have seemed set on it's course. And, often, a fundamental discombobulation in no longer being able to rely on, and take for granted, a physical body, in the same way way that 'healthy' people do. Whether the 'difference' is visible or invisible, these matters are set in the context of societal ableism, and psychological 'othering'. All of these matters, and more, may be explored.
This is the word often associated with psychotherapy in the public imagination: the reason why a person may seek a therapist. But the term is a very broad one and derives from the ancient greek for 'wound/hurt'. Whether you have experienced a single traumatic incident, or the daily 'drip, drip, drip' of living in a difficult early environment (this latter usually described as 'complex' trauma), we can explore it together. The area of trauma may include experiences which are acutely difficult to articulate, or which may have been repressed and 'forgotten' (I am including child sexual abuse here), and it is vital that this core material is approached in your own time and at your own pace to minimise the risk of retraumatisation. It also highlights the importance of the client/therapist relationship in building a therapeutic space of trust and safety where difficult feelings and experiences may be held.

Types of Therapies Offered

  • Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapist

What I can help with

  • Abuse
  • ADHD
  • Adoption
  • Age-related Issues
  • Anxiety
  • Autism
  • Bereavement
  • Chronic Illness
  • Depression
  • Disability
  • Divorce
  • Domestic Violence
  • Eating Disorders
  • Employment Difficulties
  • Family
  • Gender
  • Health-related Issues
  • Identity Problems
  • Infertility
  • Mental Health Issues
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
  • Parents
  • Phobias
  • Post-Traumatic Stress
  • Relationships
  • Separation
  • Sexual Abuse
  • Sexuality
  • Spirituality
  • Step Families
  • Stress
  • Terminal Illness
  • Transgender
  • Trauma

Types of sessions

  • Face to Face - Long Term
  • Face to Face - Short Term
  • Online Therapy

Bristol Office

14 Orchard Street
Bristol BS1 5EH
United Kingdom (UK)

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Cost:

£60-£75

Concession:

I offer ten percent of my practice availability to clients who may be in need of therapy but in financial difficulty. Currently, these spaces are filled.

UKCP College

  • Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy College (HIPC)
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Stephanie White

Bristol BS1
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