Adult Work
How I work with you explained in more detail.
In 1-1 work I provide a confidential space for you to explore the issues you bring. I listen with empathy and compassion, offering you an opportunity to be seen and heard so that you can meet more your whole self. I spend time getting to know you, what your hopes and fears are, and as we build trust so our relationship strengthens. Within this relationship, I can help you get closer to your self, and help you uncover reasons behind your issues and so bring healing and ease.
In our sessions, I sit with you and witness how you are, allowing time for you to tune into your feelings. Feeling tired, sad, worried, frustrated, disappointed or even unsure of how you are feeling are some examples of what can emerge. Becoming aware of our feelings, our thoughts, our physical sensations can provide us with a signal to see what's there and bring greater understanding.
I also encourage practicing returning to calm or “presence” in therapy sessions where I can build in types of meditation practices suited to you. This can help you learn and practice tools to self regulate and soothe which you can take into your life. Doing this together can encourage you towards self healing.
I often draw from the Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) model where you can work with different parts of yourself. To give you some examples of common parts or sub personalities that come up: the procrastinating part; the inadequate part; the tidying part; the angry part or the small lonely child part. The work is to turn towards these parts, with my help through talking, visualisation, or using objects, and by cultivating curiosity and compassion towards them you can get to know them: How do they serve you? How do they feel? This helps you reconnect to parts of your self which can bring understanding and healing to your ‘inner’ family and helps you become more integrated, calmer, wiser.
If you would like to work with the creative arts we can use them as a way for you to tell your story and uncover insights around it. Here are some examples below to give you a sense of how -
metaphorically using stories you know, where you choose a character that resonates or you create your own story....allowing you to recognise your feelings through a fictional character or metaphor
using movement, where you embody a feeling or a character or you talk and then chose to move and notice what this reveals to you about yourself
creating your own sculpt or world with objects to understand better your inner world, or using art materials to explore thoughts and feelings
There is absolutely no need "to be good at" art or "to be creative" as there is no right or wrong in how you express yourself. And it is quite ok to use the sessions to talk and use these methods if or when they may be needed to feel deeper into something that is hard to find the words for.
Exploring our inner emotional world through talking and imagination allows parts of it to be seen and made less unfamiliar. Once an idea, a memory, a feeling or thought is conscious, there is more choice about what can be done with it. Reactions and behaviour can gradually be understood and so changed.