Hey, I’m glad you’ve landed here. I want to tell you about me, and what therapy will be like if you see me, so it might be just a little bit easier to scroll down and complete my enquiry form. It’s hard for anyone to book an appointment with a psych for the first time, but I suspect it’s harder for you. I put up a specific LGBTQIA+ page, not because there’s anything particularly different about my approach (although there are extra sensitivities and knowledge I apply) but because I wanted to do more than place a token rainbow -which I feel can be just a bit too easy and thoughtless now. I also want to acknowledge, that the fight has not been won, that your safety and acceptance is not a given, and pages like this are necessary.

Your experience with me

I like sessions to be friendly and casual. Yes, we will be doing serious work and there will no doubt be tears from time to time, but hopefully, there will also be a lot of laughing and casualness. Making yourself feel at home is a must. Feet on chairs in my clinic is completely ok, and if you’re seeing me in your home by video, jammies or trackies is no problem!

The words people have used to describe me over the years – professionally and personally – is gentle (most common) and calm (close second). I definitely have not felt calm most of my life, but I can appreciate that I have somehow pulled off the look of calm on the outside (visualise a serene duck on the surface of the water with feet paddling madly underneath where no-one can see). Nowadays, post a lot of therapy (note the subtle product placement), I am much more calm above and below the water -if you know what I mean!

Here are the things that I place high importance on in therapy

• I’ll try my hardest to ‘get you’ and your experience, as deeply as I can, from a heart level. I don’t always get there, but I always try. That’s empathy, it’s always there, I’m just aiming for deeper and deeper levels of it.
• From a place of trying to understand you, or deep empathy, there’s no room for judgement. With deep understanding comes deep empathy. Judgement comes from lack of understanding and an unwillingness to try to understand.
• If you say it, I believe you. Period. No questions. You’re not on trial We are not in court to test your evidence. I don’t care what ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’ or ‘mum’ or ‘dad’ would day. I don’t care about other perspectives or points of views. It’s your perspective, your experience and your feelings that are relevant. That’s all that matters to me.
• If you are feeling it, it’s right, because you are feeling it, right? Similarly, if you are feeling it, you should be feeling it, because you are feeling it, right? They have important information, so I’ll always suggest paying attention and seeing what they have to tell you.
•  I love what I do, so much. So, I can’t help that the joy and enthusiasm I have spills over to my clients. I care about my them and I invest in their healing. Your wellness matters to me.

Your psychotherapy experience with me

I will already know a little about why you are seeing me, so I’ll start the session by mentioning something about that to break the ice and make it easier for you to open up. Some people come in knowing exactly what they want to talk about, and others aren’t so sure. If you feel a bit stuck, I might say something like “you don’t have to tell me everything today, it will come out as it needs to” or “why don’t you just start with what’s hard in your life right now”.

Emotion Focused Therapy

I use Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) which means that I see emotional experience and emotional processing as the most important parts of psychological healing and wellbeing. Some of the points below are the kinds of things you might experience in therapy with me. If that all sounds a bit much, we can just do talk therapy, but I’ll always gently get you to just check in with your emotional experience.

• Helping you become aware of your emotions, or more aware of them
• Become more accepting of your emotions, rather than trying to push them away or get rid of them
• Help you get in touch with painful feelings and how they impact you, then get in touch with other emotions that can help with that pain.

EFT is experiential, which means that instead of just talking about what’s happened I’ll help you connect with the emotional experience of what happened, so they can be healthily processed once and for all during the session.

If any of that connects with you on some level or has you interested, go ahead and fill out the enquiry form below. There’s no obligation. Just tell me a bit about yourself and what is going on, I’ll send you some information about my services, including costs etc., and you can feel welcome to ask any questions you might have.