Counselling & Therapy

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field, I'll meet you there"

I love this Rumi quote, with it’s invitation to sit in a safe & non judgemental space. It’s at the heart of the kind of therapy I practice, grounded in Carl Rogers insight that our minds can gradually unfurl given the safe, confidential & nonjudgemental space that therapy can offer. Sometimes that feels at first like a great bundle of knots, perhaps a tangled kite string! And together, over time, we loosen and release until the lines are free and the wind can catch the kites sail again. 

If you've arrived here with an idea to seek therapy for yourself, or researching for a loved one,  then gaining a sense of whether I may be the right therapist right now is key, so there’s a short video  with a little about how therapy might be with me and I hope a chance to gain an impression of whether I might be the right person to work with.

There's some more about how therapy and sessions might work below and at any point you feel ready to book an initial talk please get in touch here. I don’t charge for this first session.

So what makes therapy therapy?  what makes for a successful therapeutic partnership and the sort of healing outcomes we hope for??

The therapy journey certainly unfolds in unique ways with each person but there are several consistent elements that underpin good therapy. And we might talk of three sides, a trinity perhaps, to the work.  The first of course is the person and what brings you here at this moment in time? What is needed? the "Why Now" as Irvin Yalom puts it.   Often there are themes of recent or past losses, traumatic experience, and change, or it's absence, in many forms.  The research suggests that along with the life experiences a person brings, what most aids a successful therapy journey is the bringing of a readyness to enter into a transformative process, albeit perhaps in nascent form.

Add in the therapist, me here, to bring a practiced commitment to the making of safe confidential space & time that is just yours, the experience of being kindly witnessed,  accepted and gradually fully understood by another.  Often, having such a safe space is unfamiliar,  so we go slow and allow the adjusting into this unique space and learning for both of how best to use it this time.

The evidence suggests that the modality of the therapist, the school of therapeutic thought they emerge from, has little impact on how beneficial the client finds the journey.   What seems to matter most, the third side of the trinity if you like, is that client and therapist are able to develop a bond of trust and move gradually toward a non hierarchical relationship, peers.  Its here, in the unique and precious space of total acceptance, love and demonstrated committment to understanding,  that the human mind can slowly heal, unfurl, rewire. 

I’ve come to understand the therapy process as one of finding one’s self again or anew and feeling at home there, welcome. And it resonates nicely with yoga and mindfulness of course which I may include with some gentle moving and breathing as we relearn how to calm our nervous systems, safely regulate and remember how to be comfortable in our own skin. 

If you’d like to know more about how we might work please get in touch to book an initial session, and also with any specific questions you have at this stage.  You’ll find more from me here on some of the ideas, philosophies and therapeutic modes I practice and include in sessions.