Counselling / Psychotherapy Services Offered

Psychotherapy enables us to have a deepened awareness of ourselves, our relationship patterns and the choices available to us in the present. Through a recreation of our past, it helps us to gain understanding and insight into the origins of our disturbing issues, be they emotional, psychological or relational. Increasing awareness along with a range of helpful strategies and techniques, in turn, can enable us to work through our difficulties.
Psychological issues are common and can benefit from professional help.

Some of the areas I work with:

⦿ Anxiety
⦿ Depression
⦿ Anger management
⦿ Low self-esteem
⦿ Identity issues
⦿ Grief counselling
⦿ Stress management
⦿ Relationship difficulties
⦿ Addictions
⦿ Eating disorders
⦿ Personal development
⦿ Lack of meaning or purpose
⦿ Training in meditation / mindfulness
⦿ Trauma, PTSD, CPTSD
⦿ Emotional abuse / sexual abuse
⦿ Emotionally unstable personality disorder
⦿ Panic disorder
⦿ Obsessive-Compulsive disorder

Couples Therapy

I am Certified in The Gottman Method of working with couples. The Gottman method has a strong evidence base for establishing successful relationships. It is centred around managing conflict and improving overall communication, enhancing the foundation of friendship and intimacy within the relationship and establishing a shared system of meaning and connection, for the couple building a life together.

Formerly, I have also received a Certificate in Esther Perel's Transformative Approach to couples therapy, which is highly impactful and research-based. 

Other aspects of my work with couples (and family relationships) involves an exploration of the relationship issues and difficulties, including attitudes towards 'differences' within the relationship, exploration of needs and feelings, making unconscious beliefs and expectations conscious, paying attention to communication difficulties and providing training in assertiveness skills, resolution of perpetual conflict, establishing greater understanding and empathy within the relationship and establishing healthy boundaries. I also work towards the resolution of any trauma incurred within the context of the relationship.

Trauma Therapy

I am a 'Certified Clinical Trauma Professional' (Level 2), trained in working with PTSD / CPTSD / developmental trauma / dissociative states. Within the context of a safe and trusting relationship with clients, in which healing becomes possible, I follow the ‘tri-phasic model’ in my work towards trauma recovery:
Phase 1) Safety and Stabilisation of symptoms.
Phase 2) Reprocessing the Memories (clearing the past charge).
Phase 3) Integration, Meaning and Growth (forward-facing).

I am trained in the use of treatment protocols such as TF-CBT (Trauma Focussed - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), IRRT (Imagery Rescripting and Reprocessing Therapy), NET (Narrative Exposure Therapy) and the IFS (Internal Family Systems) model. Each of these interventions have a strong evidence-base for trauma recovery. I am also trained in the use of embodiment-based interventions to release the symptoms of trauma held in the body.

‘We cannot change the past, no matter how hard we try or how good our tools. It is just not possible. The past is, literally, out of our control. The good news is, we can change the effect the past continues to have on ourselves and our clients, now and in the future.’ Rothschild.

I offer evidence-based psychotherapy, which is personalised and tailored to meet your needs. I aim to help you attain the goals you are striving for, by providing you with a warm, accepting and supportive space, where your issues can be explored in depth. I am committed to developing a therapeutic relationship with you that is non-judgmental, confidential and safe.

‘Change can only come about once we become who or what we truly are’.

I aim to help you explore what feels real to yourself (your thoughts, feelings and attitudes) so that you can develop insight into who you are. In meeting yourself - with your raw emotions and vulnerabilities - you can gain the clarity, strength and courage to meet life (and others) with greater authenticity and well being.

My approach is integrative-transpersonal, which means, I work by combining a whole range of therapeutic approaches and techniques, such as psychodynamic, gestalt, transactional analysis, cognitive-behavioral, client-centered, existential and also, transpersonal.

Two approaches I heavily draw on, are the psychodynamic approach and the gestalt approach. While the psychodynamic approach aims to gain insight into the origins of your painful feelings and disturbing behaviours, the gestalt approach aims to increase your awareness of all that you are experiencing in the here-and-now and the choices available to you in the present.

Transpersonal means that some sort of process is occurring within us, which in essence, goes beyond us. The goal of transpersonal therapy is the expanding of your consciousness and a deepening of your self-awareness. Depending upon the outcome hoped for, I can empower you with techniques such as meditation, mindfulness and positive affirmations to help you to achieve the same. Mindfulness allows you to gently and compassionately focus your attention - to your thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations - in the present moment - and without judgement. It encourages you to stay present, with whatever it is that you are experiencing, thereby enabling you to break free from self-defeating habit patterns. Positive affirmations are helpful in creating a positive image of yourself, as they allow you to consistently affirm your positive qualities. By creating an image of yourself as you want to be, they can also become a means of moving towards your goals.

I am also trained in several cognitive-behavioural interventions, which are empirically validated and can work well in treating many states of anxiety and depression.

Two models I heavily draw on, particularly while working with trauma, are the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). IFS is a powerfully transformative, evidence-based and integrative model of psychotherapy. It is based on the view that our minds are made up of relatively discrete subpersonalities, each with their own unique viewpoints and valuable qualities and that our core ‘Self’ knows how to heal. Recovery from trauma, addictions, self-defeating behaviours, anxiety and depression involves befriending and healing these ‘parts’ of ourselves. This allows us to become integrated and whole and promotes self-compassion. CPT is based on the view that we, having experienced traumatic events, often get ‘stuck’ in our thoughts and beliefs, which may have lasting impacts on our lives. This approach helps us to manage our distressing thoughts and to alter our ‘stuck beliefs’ by gaining a deeper perspective on how traumatic experiences influenced the way we think about ourselves and the world. Both these models have a strong evidence-base for trauma recovery.

I believe that the relationship between therapist and client is the most important factor in achieving goals in therapy and therefore, I strive to establish relational depth with each of my clients. While I am willing to give my 100%, the effectiveness of therapy also depends upon your willingness to explore disturbing emotions in therapy and to take responsibility for yourselves. Together, this can yield the best results in therapy.

I am respectful of individual and cultural differences, whether of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, religion or any other difference.

‘One must learn to love oneself…with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam.’ Nietzsche.