Psychotherapy near Beaconsfield

I will clarify with the client the basis on which counselling is to be undertaken, including fees and confidentiality. All subsequent changes will be negotiated.

I continually monitor my own skills, resources and practice.

I am professionally qualified as counsellor/psychotherapist and I am committed to maintaining my competence.

I have regular supervision and consultative support.

I will not abuse my position or trust in any way.

While I follow the core principles and ethics of counselling outlined above, I have developed approaches to my work which I seek to tailor to the needs of each client according to their needs, life experiences and reasons for seeking my help. These different strands to my work are the result of the integration of my developing experience, philosophy and training and my understanding of innovations in the world of counselling and psychotherapy.

In addition to my basic beliefs grounded in the Person-Centred Approach I outline here the main areas which I incorporate into my work and which I have found have proved most helpful to my clients.

Ordinary daily events seem to happen without leaving a mark on our lives. Traumatic events however can often get trapped, forming a perpetual blockage. Like a broken record, they can repeat themselves in our mind-body over and over again. Nightmares may be the mind's way of attempting to process this information, but the trauma memory always lasts beyond the dream. 

Traumatic experiences, when locked in the mind, can exacerbate anxiety and prevent a person from moving forward and escaping from the prison of fear. 

EMDR can help the traumatised to feel what is true for them. It can help a person to develop and attune to their own inner wisdom. EMDR clears away clutter so that a person can normalise their experience. It allows the 'locked' information to pass through the mind, processing and normalising it. The therapist follows and facilitates the client's process without interpretation or judgement. This enables the person to observe and report their experiences with less fear and aversion, listening to themselves. 

In EMDR therapy people develop and strengthen their sense of truth & inner wisdom by reprocessing the old traumatic material in a structured and safe way. 

I would be pleased to explain the principles and procedures of EMDR if you would like further clarification.

I believe that most of us can benefit from discovering out Inner Child and responding to her/his cry. ‘Let me out!’ I believe that the wounds that our Inner Child received from our parents and from the cumulative experiences of childhood and adolescence is what contaminate our adult selves. This occurs through a powerful ‘toxic shame’ which can haunt us and express itself through anxiety, depression and/or addiction throughout our adult lives. I believe, however, that if we are able to connect with, express and understand this shame then we can liberate and reclaim the feelings, sensitivity and wonderment of the Free Child we all possess and find ourselves on a path to healing and health.

 

I encourage clients who want to follow Inner Child work in the therapy to look at how they recognise and experience their Inner Child and discover to what extent their childhood needs went unmet and how this impacted on their adult lives. I then encourage the client to re-parent their Inner Child in - and between – sessions by transforming their shaming voice into a nurturing one. This is often through Art, Chair Work, Voice Dialogues, Visualisation, Focusing and Letter-Writing.

I encourage my male clients to “follow their bliss” by integrating what I have discovered about myself on my personal journey with what I have learnt from so many male clients over the years. I adopt an approach which decisively rejects the old masks of power and dominance which men have traditionally worn.