About therapy
Therapy usually starts with speaking: why you are here, what has happened and is happening in your life. You may have an idea of what you're experiencing, with a name for it such as anxiety, depression or burnout, or it might be harder to define. We can spend plenty of time together with this, and always return to it. I'm really keen to know who you are and what you're doing here - and this can be an ongoing theme through the work.
At some point, something else might begin to get our attention. It could be a feeling in the body or a familiar sensation; a dream, image or memory; something happening between us that feels worth exploring; or something from the wider context of your life, past or present.
I think of these as different channels of experience. Part of my role is to help us notice and listen to them without assuming in advance where we need to go. We might stay with something for a while, move between different channels to see what emerges, or return to your story, your relationships and what is happening now. Following these threads together, while paying attention to what happens between us along the way, can allow something new to emerge.
Body, breath and touch
Mind and body are deeply interconnected. As we grow up, we often learn to hold ourselves together in a particular shape - one that suited us or was necessary at the time, but which can later restrict our possibilities in how we feel, behave or relate. Working with the body as well as the mind can allow other possibilities to emerge without trying to impose a different shape that doesn't fit. Both form and flow are important here - finding what definition and solidity, as well as flexibility and openness, mean for you.
Often attention to the body can be subtle, such as noticing a sensation or particular posture. If it feels useful, we can work more actively in this way: speaking directly to the body to see what it has to say, experimenting with changing position or movement, or working with breath.
As a body psychotherapist I am trained in therapeutic touch and can offer this possibility when it feels relevant. Touch can sometimes allow connections or experiences to emerge that are difficult to reach through other channels. It is always optional, clearly discussed and mutually agreed, and would usually only be considered once we have established a good working relationship. Often I don't work with touch at all, but I like people to know the possibility is there if needed.
Repeating patterns
Sometimes what we experience in the present carries something of the past. Earlier experiences of difficulty, loss, trauma or unmet need may not return as clear memories, but as recurring feelings, bodily states or ways of seeing ourselves and the world. This can include the effects of acute trauma as well as developmental or complex trauma and experiences associated with C-PTSD.
At times these states can feel larger than the immediate situation seems to warrant. The world may suddenly feel hostile or uncaring; a difficulty in a relationship can feel as though it needs to be resolved immediately or everything will fall apart. While we are in these more contracted places, they can colour our whole experience. When they pass, our experience of the world can feel more benign again.
Rather than simply trying to get rid of these states, we can learn to recognise and move through them more skilfully and compassionately. We can also become curious about what repeats — a feeling, bodily sensation, fear or relational theme — and see what it connects with across your life.
Sometimes the imagery, sensations or associations that emerge seem connected with very early or preverbal experience, or our experience of coming into the world. Whatever their origins, attention to bodily experience can give us a way of staying with material that does not readily present itself in words.
As we become more familiar with these recurring states, they can become less like chasms we repeatedly fall into and more like experiences we can recognise, move through and understand from a wider place. Over time, they may also lessen in their intensity and impact.
The wider context
What happens within us and within the therapy room doesn't happen in isolation. Our families, relationships and histories matter, as do the social and cultural worlds we live in.
Gender, sexuality, race, class, culture, religion and the different forms our relationships take can all shape our experience, including how we have been seen and responded to by others.
We may also differ in how we experience and process the world. Differences in attention, sensory experience, communication or ways of relating can be important to recognise and make space for, whether or not you identify with a particular diagnosis or description.
Our sense of context can extend further too, to our relationship with land and nature, ancestry, spirituality and other sources of meaning or belonging.
Allowing space for these wider contexts, when they feel relevant or meaningful, can open possibilities for connection and support that may previously have felt unavailable.
Get in touch
If you'd like to explore working together, you're welcome to get in touch for a free initial phone conversation.