Specialisms
I have over 18 years' experience working with a huge range of client issues. To find out more about my specialisms, please see below. Any examples I provide are possibilities - your experience may be very different. I will always learn from you about your specific experience of these issues.
Trauma
Do past events continue to significantly impact your daily life and relationships? Are you finding yourself regularly triggered or feeling like you are often in a state of dissociation?
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I have a rich toolbox of scientifically proven techniques, which we can use to identify specifically what works for you in addressing the impact of the trauma.
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Trauma is the normal response to an abnormal situation. When the impact of this is enduring, it has a significant negative impact on how we live our life. Trauma arise from a one-off situation, such as a medical procedure, car accident, sexual assault. Alternatively, trauma can be from an enduring or complex situation, such as neglect in childhood, a coercive relationship, or a chronic physical or mental health condition.
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We can’t ever change the traumatic event, but we can alter the impact of it. Our understanding of trauma (and how we work with it) has changed dramatically over the past twenty years. Although talking about it can help, we now recognise that going over and over the story can actually be more damaging.
I will use an understanding of how your brain works, the somatic effect on your body, grounding techniques and mindfulness, to build a personal programme to help you to live a more fulfilling life.
Relationships
Do you find yourself in the same pattern of relationships that is no
longer serving you?
I will guide you in examining where these patterns originated, how they have served you in the past, and the changes you can make now to break those patterns.
We are not born knowing how to make relationships. We often learn this from the significant adults around us, and the model they provided was shaped by their own experiences.
Early on, we learn roles and behaviours that will give us what we need in relating to others in our life. But each time we ‘adapt’ to a role, we move away from the core of who we are. Essential to do at the time, but longer term, this has a significant impact on the relationships we build.
It is often in our late twenties and thirties that we begin to feel this - a sense of not feeling aligned with ourselves. We may start to question if this is okay.
I will support you in coming back to who you want to be, a self that is aligned with your values and core beliefs. In knowing your true self, we can work out how to navigate your current relationships in a more authentic way.
Parenting
Are you struggling with your role as a parent and or the relationship you have with
your child?
I will draw on my lifetime experience, as a mother, grandmother, teacher,
and psychotherapist. I will help you understand the roots of this struggle, and offer tools you can use to build a stronger positive relationship.
How often have you thought, 'When I become a parent, I’m never going to...' and then when you do become a parent, you find yourself doing it?!
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How do we navigate all the changes that take place with our child, whilst this tiny little being depends solely on us and then grows up and does not behave in the way that we thought they would? Help! How do we know how to respond when our own inner child is remembering their own experiences and screaming out?
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Together, we can gently and compassionately explore our own model of parenting we experienced and how this colours how we view our own children, and ourselves in this role.
In counselling, we talk about the ‘good enough parent.’ For most of us, we are doing our very best, but it is the toughest job ever!!! We work with sleep deprivation, our changed relationship with our bodies, our partners, our place in society, and that is just a tiny window into the most dramatic turnaround in our lives.​
I start from the premise that you are doing the best that you can, as were your parents. Together, we can explore what you are finding is not working, and find ways that can strengthen and build the relationship with your child, your partner and yourself.
Boarding School Experiences
Are you struggling with intimate relationships, or do you think you're becoming a workalcoholic? Do you work well in ‘institutions,’ but struggle in less formed structures?
These are but a few common themes that can be rooted in the fracturing of attachment when you left your family to go to boarding school.
When we talk about the harmful impact of living at boarding school, people often assume that we are referring to experiences of abuse - be it sexual, emotional or physical. If this was not your experience, you might respond with, ‘But I had a great time!’’
I would ask you to go back to when you first started.
When we cried when our parents left us, the adults around us told us, ‘Don’t cry. You will get over it soon. Keep yourself busy.’ What narrative do you imagine we are left with from this experience? 'We are not allowed to talk about our feelings.' What we learnt to do was swallow our feelings down. But they don’t go away!
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Do you remember how you felt when you first arrived? Sharing a dorm with several other strangers. Fitting into a system. Never having any space on your own. Trying to work out what you have to do to fit in: essential information if you don’t want to stand out and be a target!
How do we manage this? By being alert at all times to everything around us - and by going into survival mode. This was not a conscious decision by you. This is what your body does to protect you. ​Over years of living like this, this way of living becomes so normalised that even when we leave school, we remain in this state.
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It is hard to talk about this, even when we are older, as the implicit message we received was, 'You were privileged to have had this experience, and it cost a lot of money! Be grateful and don’t complain.' Whilst this is true, it also came at a price.
How do you imagine this survival mode plays out with our new relationship with our family? And later, in our intimate relationships?
Together we can unpick how this was for you - not to blame, but to understand. I will help you build a tailored tool kit to move from survival mode, to truly living. ​