COUNSELLING & PSYCHOTHERAPY
 

Essentially, the work grows from an initial response within yourself to your distress call
(often experienced as concern about a problem or intense desire for change)
which then leads to reaching for outside help.

As therapist, my purpose is not to 'fix' the issue your bring or make it go away. My responses are intended to
help you know better what's happening, how you feel and what you need. This enquiring way of working
is collaborative, unlike the more familiar 'diagnose and prescribe' medical model.

To be more self-aware - of feelings and needs - is empowering, fostering a sense of inner security.
Startling moments of 'acting out' - eg when aggression erupts seemingly from nowhere,
when an impulsive decision backfires - diminish; confidence and ability to negotiate and set boundaries increase.

Clearer connection with your feelings, needs and wants promotes rewarding relationships with others.
As you become better able to take care of your own neediness, you stop expecting others to do this for you,
and hating / sulking / punishing when they don't or can't. Being able to tolerate disappointment and
live with loss, being able to say 'no' - these are more than skills; these are fuelled by having a
fuller sense of who you are that comes out of this in-depth work.

I am passionate about my work and have attempted to define the therapeutic process in the following publication:
 
 
 

 
 
 

For details of 'Does Therapy Work?' and published articles, see 'Publications'.
 

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TRAUMA THERAPY

I have also trained in Trauma Therapy and work with clients to resolve and integrate past traumatic
experiences that continue to interfere with the present (often known as Post Traumatic Stress.)

My work with clients continuing to suffer in the aftermath of trauma is based on teaching by
Babatte Rothschild and Peter Levine. Both have studied animal behaviour as a basis
for understanding the Fight/Flight response, and the third survival response of Freeze,
a form of physiological shut-down that minimises pain when helpless and trapped.

A traumatic event, however short (knife attack) or long (combat, hostage-imprisonment,
child-neglect and/or abuse) its duration, is one in which someone experiences threat to life,
and/or witnesses threat to the life of another. Symptoms of stress arise when the extreme
physiological arousal we need to activate the Fight or Flight response is neither discharged
in active self-defence nor returns to balance ('relaxed alertness') after the event is over.
This most often happens if at the time we cannot fight to defend or escape but are trapped,
powerless, waiting for the danger to end rather than being pro-active in gaining safety.
We remain 'pumped up,' our bodies not believing what our concious minds know:
that now we are safe.

We may try many 'tricks' to escape high-arousal body sensations, which, long-term
and relentless, become very uncomfortable: alcohol and sugar are two substances that,
short-term, provide some relief. Addictions, obsessive / compulsive behaviours, phobias,
and all kinds of 'behavioural disorders' can be seen as signposts to unresolved trauma.
We may be driven to 'fix' other people's distress, as a way of trying to discharge our own.
We may, without awareness, seek out or create situations that activate panic or anger
in a bid to release this energy. Whether we let rip rage or collapse into familiar helplessness,
the original event remains 'incompleted.'

I work to empower a client to lower heightened anxiety, or rage, and to build and
maximise resources before carefully facilitate reactivation and release of both emotional and
bodily energies that may have been imprisoned in the system for years. The common factor to
unresolved trauma is terror and powerlessness (and the drive to beat this;) the after-effects
are often guilt, shame, distrust, continued anxiety, all of which can turn the experience into a
secret hard to share. Meanwhile, ways of coping with these feelings, while intended to soothe,
can actually severely restrict being able to live creatively. What I offer is respectful uninvasive
attention in a safe place, to encourage the process of remobilising the frozen trauma response,
leaving the client feeling empowered, 'heroic.'
 
 

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