Increased sense of self-worth
We’re living in a time when it’s so easy to feel that you’re ‘not enough’ in some way or another. The reasons can be varied (for example not rich enough, attractive enough, successful enough: the list goes on) but the experience of ‘not enough-ness’ can be very painful and can hold us back.  Counselling can support you to create a healthy sense of self-worth through developing insight into your relationship with yourself and by supporting you to grow self-compassion and understanding. We look at your patterns, how and why they developed and explore how to create new, more healthy patterns. This isn’t about me telling you what is ‘wrong’ and how to ‘fix’ it. I support you to uncover what is going on and to find your own unique solutions in an organic way.

Better Relationships
Life can feel very tough when relationships feel hard. You might feel intuitively that relationships with friends, family, partners have a big impact on our sense of belonging, health and wellbeing. This is backed up by a vast body of research (Holt-Lunstad et al 2015).
When people experience difficult relationships growing up, it can make it complicated to form and keep close relationships as adults. In counselling we can look at relational patterns which were once useful but now have become a barrier to creating satisfying, meaningful and lasting connections. We use this knowledge to explore how you might find new ways of being in relationships.

Freedom from old habits and patterns
Maybe you are feeling stuck in patterns of particular emotions like fear, sadness, anger or guilt or patterns of particular behaviours which are holding you back from living the life you want. Counselling can help to uncover why these patterns developed and offer a safe space to help you move beyond them.

Moving through difficult life experiences
In today’s fast-paced world with increasing demands and distractions, it isn’t always easy to find places to be supported with emotions and to attend to difficult experiences or states of mind. Gestalt therapy offers the chance to slow down and take time to look at issues such as trauma, depression and anxiety. We look at these issues together with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of what is going on and how to navigate difficulties so you can lead a life which is meaningful for you.

Living with more creativity and connection: Start Counselling Today
Counselling is about much more than looking at life’s difficulties and finding a way to cope with them. Building a supportive and safe space in counselling can offer you the chance to look at the parts of yourself you want more of -  for example, your creativity, your career, your capacity for love - and to find a way to nourish and grow them. Counselling can be a means to discovering what it means to you to flourish and getting the support you need for this.

‍We can work in different ways depending on what you are interested in: we can talk things through, explore movement and emotions, work with dreams or a mixture of all of these.

Talking through feelings: Valuing and appreciating your uniqueness
I offer presence and space for you to explore your world and your experiences, to make sense of them and find your own solutions to difficulties. I listen, offer empathy, acceptance, understanding and supportive challenge when the time is right. Going at your pace, I offer tools for deepening awareness of how you experience your emotions as you talk. My intention and hope for this process is that it is empowering and growthful for you.
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Working with movement: New ways of moving, new ways of being
‍Emotions are experienced both in the body and also in the mind (Van Der Kolk 2005). When we are stuck we can hold emotional patterns in the body and sometimes our habitual ways of moving support habitual emotional habits that we are trying to change.
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By bringing more awareness to what is happening in your body, how you hold yourself and how you move, a deeper understanding of your situation can emerge. By exploring old and new ways of moving, a whole new world of possibilities can open up.
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Finding a new movement can provide access to a new way of being which can support change in your life.

Dreamwork: ’Dreams are the guiding words of the soul’ – Carl Jung
Working with dreams can be a very effective way of accessing and developing new or undiscovered parts of yourself, for example your resources, strength and creativity.

The gestalt approach to dreamwork supports you to develop your own understanding of the dream through, exploring the different elements of the dream and how to integrate the learning from the dream so that it may lead to new ways of being and relating in the world. We do this by including the body as well as the mind in our exploration – by feeling into the elements of the dream you can build on your intellectual interpretation to discover more.

This supports the integration of the learning from the dream so you can use the insight gained in daily life.

How Many Sessions?
I see clients on a weekly basis because I feel this gives the momentum needed for change to happen.

Counselling can be short term or long term, it depends on what you want to gain. We will work together to identify what it is you are looking for and what might be the best way of getting it.

When people have had childhoods where their emotional lives were neglected or disrespected, it can be invaluable as an adult to have a regular space to explore your emotions and have them taken seriously. This can lead to tremendous growth in the long term.

If you want to look at a single issue, short term therapy (6-10 sessions) maybe more suitable.

£65 per 50 min session.