Therapy With Me
Therapy with me is likely to feel different to what you’ve had before or what you might have seen from a TV therapist. I don’t passively nod, expecting you to have all the answers and just repeat what I hear. I bring my personality, expertise and life experience in to the room, whilst still making sure the space is yours.
I’m a down-to-earth northerner and pride myself on creating an informal space where you can completely be yourself in. Clients say they find me easy to open up to and relax quickly in my presence. They also say “It didn’t feel like therapy” and even though it’s a serious business, I know we can laugh together about life too.
My approach
I am passionate about empowering you with evidence based tools and psychology knowledge to help you make lasting changes. You are the expert in you, but I know you’re paying me for my expertise, which I’m generous with. I also don’t think therapy should just be talking about your life each week, with no clear focus. We get clear about why you’re here and what you want to change and its my job to keep us on track. Then we usually do the following:
Get to know your story
Most people I work with feel anxious in their personal relationships, such as with close friends, partners but also with work colleagues and other social connections. This is nearly always a sign of not feeling good enough due to relationships in early childhood. We’ll explore your history and chat about how you felt as a child (either in the first session or as early as possible). We are not trying to blame parents (as a parent myself, I know it’s hard!) but it’s important to get a clear understanding where your beliefs about yourself came from. Or you might be very aware of how early childhod experiences have affected you if you have experienced abuse or childhood trauma, and we will gently explore this together
Understand how its affecting you now
We’ll then go into granular detail about how these beliefs show up in daily life. What situations feel stressful? What kind of automatic thoughts do you have? How does affect how you feel and act in daily life? This process can be really illuminating for clients who are often not aware of how much their childhood shows up in the present, and they are viewing situations from the perspective of not feeling good enough.
Empower you to make lasting change
Then each week you’ll be taught a different research-backed tool which will give you more control in how you respond so you can:
- Pause and connect with the present moment to feel more grounded and give space to tricky thoughts and feelings instead of being consumed by them/
- Regulate your nervous system so that emotions don’t feel as overwhelming and you can calm anxiety – even if you’re feeling rejected.
- Generate different perspectives instead of assuming the worst. You’ll learn to identify the thoughts causing the most anxiety in relationships and feel empowered to change your thinking in a way that actually works.
- Cultivate self compassion- you’ll understand why you always go to self -criticism, how that’s not helping and why its important to be your own best friend
- Gently explore and help you overcome deeper negative beliefs. Its not easy changing the “I’m not good enough” narrative but noticing when its showing up, pausing and responding to yourself as a compassionate friend, is proven to rewire our sense of self and build self worth.
- Process traumatic events. Sometimes there are key moments in our childhoood where the negative beliefs really took hold. Instead of spending years trying to change it, we can use EMDR to go back to the moments and rewrite your story.
Modalities I use
These words may not mean very much to you and maybe you don’t care. But just in case you’re interested, here are the names of the types of therapy approaches I am trained in that will help us achieve the above:
- CBT – Is the gold standard psychological intervention used across the world to help people overcome anxiety, self-esteem and low mood. It helps you understand how your thoughts and feelings shape your behaviour, teaches you how to generate different perspectives and work towards goals. However, some people have had CBT before and felt it hasn’t worked for them or it didn’t go deep enough. Thats why I combine CBT with other tools that can feel more useful.
- Mindfulness/Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps you give space to tricky thoughts and feelings, reduce overthinking and live by your values. This isn’t about challenging thoughts but allowing them to be more in the background and have less control over how they make you feel.
- EMDR process traumatic memories from childhood that are keeping you stuck.
- Compassion Focussed Therapy uses practical tools to reduce self criticism and shame and increase self compassion.
Next Steps
It’s important to feel I am the right therapist for you (and you are the right client for me!) thats why I offer a free consultation so that we can discuss what you want to work on and get a feel for working together. CLick the link to book your slot or you can email me with extra questions you have.
