Counselling and psychotherapy, sometimes described as “the talking cure”, a phrase that came from one of Freud’s clients, can be helpful at times in our life when we are experiencing difficulties.
Sometimes it can be good to talk to someone who is not part of our social network, our friends or family, who can try to look objectively at the issues.
I have been interested in counselling as an holistic endeavour comprising not just how we think about and articulate ourselves and the difficulties we experience from time to time but also as an endeavour that is sensitive to the ways in which emotional pain can sometimes express itself in our body in different ways, in physical aches and pains for example or in tensions in various parts of our bodies.
I have certainly appreciated this holistic approach when I have had therapy myself. By doing this, my hope is that therapy becomes more human, with the client and I relating as two human beings.
Therapy for me is about two people engaging with each other, each with their unique experiences, beliefs, their different gender or sexuality or age or cultural background, trying to find a way to heal their pain and find their way to peace, aliveness, healing, and happiness.
My Training
Working as a Counsellor in Hertfordshire and London, I trained for 5 years at different well established training organisations including the Minster Centre in London.
I am an integrative Counsellor/Therapist which means that I attend to the whole person, their perceptions, thoughts, feelings and physical experience – working as a whole.
It also means that I move flexibly among a range of approaches drawn from the family of therapeutic traditions, depending on your needs and personality.
Often as the process of therapy unfolds we move from concern with our problems and symptoms towards exploring how you might lead a more fulfilling and authentic life. Where on this continuum you choose to work is always up to you.
