A safe place......to find your way
I have a particular interest in supporting and working with people who have suffered trauma and loss of any sort.
What is trauma?
We sometimes have uncontrollable emotions and reactions that we do not understand but can have a severe impact on our daily lives. These can come from unprocessed experiences and unexpressed emotions. We can be tempted to try and avoid these symptoms and just try to keep the show on the road, however we often reach a point when we know we cannot avoid them any more. We can feel completely stuck and lost. There may be symptoms (parts) such as defensiveness, anxiety, depression, flashbacks, dissociation, intrusive thoughts or memories, phobias, nightmares, physical pain, illness or difficulty sleeping.
These can cause us to be disconnected from ourselves, from the people and the world around us.
The symptoms may not be overwhelming but you may just know that things are not right even if you cannot link this to a specific traumatic event.
How I work.
I use a combination of Internal Family Systems (https://ifs-institute.com/ ) and Attachment-Informed EDMR (https://emdrfocus.com/ ) to look at patterns and process how our past experiences might be affecting our responses in the present. This involves looking at our different 'parts' (responses) and how they might be influencing us in the here and now.
I seek to provide a safe, non-judgemental space where the symptoms and emotions can be carefully examined and released, and we can come to understand their root causes through looking at current situations and also how the present might have been affected by the past (including our experience in our Mother's womb and in our very early months). We can look at the patterns of thinking that developed, often early on in life, and whether it would be helpful to review these.
I use Attachment and IFS - Informed EMDR in different ways, depending on what you are wanting to work on. I would seek to collaborate with a client to discuss the different ways of working so that they are able to make an informed decision.
The EMDR and IFS combination helps to reduce the emotional and physiological distress from past experiences and enables more adaptive, healthy thinking and responses in the day to day.
I seek to support a client in coming to an understanding of the different roles of the parts within them and help them learn to listen to, soothe, provide healing, unburdening and different roles for those parts.
(For a helpful introduction to this see Richard Schwartz and Dr Rangan Chatterjee podcast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pan_aCXjJqs&t=19s)
EMDR works with bilateral stimulation using eye movement or other methods such as tapping. It is effective face to face and online.
Spirituality.
With anyone who would like to, I am interested to explore the transpersonal aspects of spirituality and faith.
Does our image or belief of what is 'other' cause distress and fear?
Is there something 'other' than us that could provide safety and connection?
Do you struggle with a fear of death or being alone?
I hope to provide a space where difficult questions can be asked, and beliefs and fears can be gently unpacked and understood.
