Therapies and Offerings.
EMDR - Eye Movement, Desensitisation and Reprocessing Therapy
EMDR is an evidence-based therapy that developed to help people deal with trauma and PTSD. It is now used in a number of ways for a wide range of issues including OCD, repeated childhood abuse, addiction and grief. It involves thinking about the memory while simultaneously tapping the body or moving the eyes. This updates the meanings and emotions attached to the memory and changes the way trauma is stored in the body and brain. EMDR is considered to be a Somatic Therapy; it works directly with the nervous system and the body.
Sensorimotor Therapy & Somatic Therapy
Somatic Therapies work with the way trauma is stored in the body. These therapies use mindfulness based approaches to increase awareness of the nervous system and the many sensory systems that can get disrupted by trauma. Sensorimotor Therapy also focuses on attachment wounding too. The aim of Somatic Therapy is nervous system regulation which is achieved by gently working with the somatic, emotional and cognitive systems. This allows those systems to then gradually release the trauma material and heal.
Schema Therapy
Schema Therapy works with the way we make sense of the world (Schemas) and then how we behave (Modes). Schema Therapy works with “parts” of the personality: our inner child, our coping styles, our protectors, and the grown up adult. The aim of the therapy is to explore, identify and then heal the unmet needs of childhood using the therapeutic relationship, imagery and chairwork. The work is intense and powerful, and supported by sound research evidence.
ACT - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a therapy that draws upon mindfulness and other approaches to help people step back from their thoughts and live more meaningful and fulfilling lives based on what’s important to them. ACT is a playful approach resting on a sophisticated theory of language, that invites you to become more psychologically flexible in the face of life’s inevitable difficulties. It has a growing evidence base and has recently been included in the NICE guidelines for the management of chronic pain.
Compassion Focused Therapy
Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is often referred to as a 3rd Wave CBT Therapy, but is in fact a completely separate, well researched approach to mental health issues.
CFT is particularly effective for working with anger, sadness, shame, anxiety and self-criticism. CFT focuses on helping you to understand the 3 main motivational and emotion regulation systems of the brain - threat, drive and soothe - and how to balance these systems so their emotional impact no longer trips you up.
CFT works extensively with compassionate imagery and body based exercises to train the mind in compassion.
Mindfulness Based Approaches
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) are both secular therapies that draw upon (or appropriate!) indigenous, Buddhist contemplative practices and Western cognitive psychology to help manage stress and chronic pain or to stay well after depression. MBCT and MBSR are very well researched therapies. Newer adaptations of these approaches are currently emerging.
I am a trauma-informed mindfulness teacher, I was trained at Exeter University by Alison Evans and Kay Octigan who are both cutting-edge educators. Exeter is one of the three leading training centres for mindfulness in the UK. I have practiced mindfulness meditation for over 30 years and attended many retreats.
Narrative Therapy
Narrative Therapy explores how we tell stories about ourselves, other people and the world. When we start to explore the “text” of our story, we can be incredibly creative with it, discover strengths we didn’t realise we had, and then reframe the story in a different way. We can be liberated from stories that have held us back.
Narrative therapy works with ideas like re-authoring your life story, witnessing your story with others, honouring your story using ritual, and reclaiming harmful narratives we were told by others (including society) about who we are. Narrative Therapists have a distinguished history of working with marginalized groups and oppressed communities.
Emergent Strategy and Deep Liberation
Emergent Strategy is a form of radical self-help which engages with society, the planet and the future. adrienne maree brown wrote the book of the same name, which offers inspiring ways to “get in right relationship with change” by intervening in the systems around, beyond and inside us.
Deep Liberation is a body based approach to reclaiming wholeness from cultural trauma. Langston Kahn devised Deep Liberation, and his book has had a marked influence on my therapeutic practice.
The above approaches are not “therapies” per se, but offer visions of deep repair and healing that are woven into my therapy practice, and how I try to live my life.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - CBT
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a deceptively simple yet nuanced approach to understanding and changing how you think feel and behave.
Cognitive behavioural therapy argues that thoughts, feelings and embodied behaviours are all interlinked. If one of these areas is out of balance with the others, we can get caught up in self sustaining loops or “vicious cycles” of depression, anxiety or other mental health problems.
However, we can learn to make sense of these feedback loops and what sustains them, and then make changes, which in turn generates new feedback loops and “helpful cycles” of engagement, enjoyment and enlivenment.
CBT is very much an action-based, collaborative approach which relies on you setting goals, acquiring new skills and testing them out in the laboratory of your day-to-day life.
CBT is ideal for people wanting a problem-focused, short term, practical “dose” of therapy. Many men find CBT helpful due to its structured, outward, action-focus.