Psychotherapy and counselling is a big step to embark on. It means acknowledging that you want to change something within your being. It could be from circumstances that you never would have imagined to happen to you through to understanding on some level, that an improved way of being exists.
“Knowing others is intelligence, knowing yourself is wisdom” ~ Lao Tzu
Counselling/therapeutic process is a lot like growing a garden. Sometimes a garden becomes overgrown, and it needs to be pruned back and weeded. Sometimes a garden is barren and raw, needing much TLC to nurture the tender little plants that are emerging. Sometimes new seeds are planted and the garden develops into something really wonderful. All the while, the garden needs to be nurtured, tended and cared for so that the flowers continue to bloom.
I can help you with:
- managing emotions
- strengthening family bonds
- resolving the impact of trauma(s)loss and bereavement issues
- identity work
- addressing a critical illness diagnosis
- improving interpersonal relationships
- encouraging creativity
- integrating significant life changes
To get a better idea of my practice as a therapist, I will share some of my influences. My origins are in feminism and Carl Rogers’ humanist theories. This evolved to a love of post-modern theories and a Narrative based practice. Further, as a person who has a meditation practice, this too, has lead me to use Mindful-based techniques in psychotherapy. As I have a creative side, I trained in Expressive Art Therapy. More recently I trained in Compassionate Inquiry with Gabor Maté and presently I am exploring Internal Family Systems (Richard Schwartz) and Relational Life Therapy (Terry Real).
I strongly believe each of us is the expert on our own lives. I look at the services I provide as helping you decipher the roadmap of your life through use of a different point of view, slowing down automatic responses through mindfulness and creating alternative ways of expression (using various art modalities: visual, movement, writing, music). I like to consider ways to integrate life changes through art and personal narrative that facilitate being more in your life and living to your fullest potential. Although I write this for an individual client, this can apply to couples, families and groups where I look to strengthen bonds when significant change occurs.
“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” ~ OHSO
I strongly believe each of us is the expert on our own lives. I look at the services I provide as helping you decipher the roadmap of your life through use of a different point of view, slowing down automatic responses through mindfulness and creating alternative ways of expression (using various art modalities: visual, movement, writing, music). I like to consider ways to integrate life changes through art and personal narrative that facilitate being more in your life and living to your fullest potential. Although I write this for an individual client, this can apply to couples, families and groups where I look to strengthen bonds when significant change occurs.
My experience is that life is fluid, as are the challenges that come with living. Often what brings us to psychotherapy can change over time or be peeled back like an onion to find more underneath. There are many modalities of psychotherapy. Research shows that the modality of practice only accounts for about 20% for success in counselling, the other 80% is the connection you create with your therapist.
If there is something that catches your attention from my description of how I practice psychotherapy or you’d like to book an appointment