Counselling and Psychotherapy
The process of Counselling and Psychotherapy is relational and is jointly attended, usually taking place weekly, on the same day and at the same time and place.
It can be thought of as a ‘investment’ into yourself, an invitation to develop personal insights towards self-understanding or to increase self- awareness. Being heard by someone who is professionally trained to listen can be a powerful experience and for many, may feel strangely unfamiliar. For others this may be a welcome relief or both. Therapy offers opportunities to address challenging or difficult issues affecting your life or aspects of your life and may include acknowledging painful, confusing or buried feelings.
Fear, anger, joy and sadness are collectively understood, major human emotional states and yet are uniquely individual in relation to the way they are expressed psycho- biologically. When emotions overwhelm, are overrun and if they are blocked or complicated they can contribute to limitations and even impairments in psychological, emotional and physical health.
How you connect, orient and weave yourself in and through the world will have complex roots in relational, cultural and intrapersonal life scripts. This complexity often forms the reason for the ways you adapt and respond within these contexts, also influencing how you feel and think and the ways in which you relate, behave and make choices.
It is your right to decide your goals in therapy even if you do not feel sure of what these are at first. The overall aim of counselling and psychotherapy can be seen as a quest towards living life more fully and more meaningfully. Your decision to approach therapy may be based on a current situation or one or more recent event that has been traumatic or that seems unmanageable, heavy or overwhelming for you. You may not have any specific concern but feel stuck, lost or anxious and would like to explore this with someone who is external to your personal network.
I treat individuals in a non-pathologising way, considering the impacts of inner and outer worlds on psychological health. Approaches that consider the holistic, inter-connectedness of mind, body and beyond correspond well with the way I work. I am open to inviting transcultural and intercultural perspectives especially in relation to the ways in which identities are experienced within the individual’s social, relational and spiritual contexts.
I am particularly interested in the creative process as a source and indicator of psychological health. Rather than looking at ‘cures’, my bias lies in an expectation that to live more fully and in alignment with one’s personal potential, acceptance of paradox, in spite of discomfort can grant this.
