How Therapy May Help
The opportunity to talk openly and in confidence about feelings, events and situations in life that are causing distress is a tremendously valuable experience for many people. Sucessful therapy enables your natural flow to resume, so that life can start working better, involving far less strain.
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You may simply want to learn strategies to reduce current symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression, relationship or family issues for example. I can offer brief and focal therapy that can be very helpful in this regard. Alternatively you may want to make lasting changes to unconscious conflicts that underlie your symptoms, especially if you have recurring patterns in your important relationships that cause unhappiness. When we meet for an initial discussion, we will be able to clarify whether it is likely to be long-term or short-term therapy that is best suited to what you need at the moment.
Healing of the soul.........
The original meaning of the word ‘psychotherapy’ comes from Greek; psyche meaning soul and therapeia meaning healing. I like this spiritually oriented definition as it reminds me of what therapy is about or can be about, which for me is healing at a deep level. This type of in-depth therapy can be suprisingly liberating, enabling us to release unhelpful programming, to find out more about who we really are, as well as the courage to be more of who we really are in the world.
Counselling and psychotherapy can be helpful to you if you are experiencing difficulties such as:
Depression
Anxiety or worrying thoughts
Feelings of low self-esteem or poor self-confidence
Relationship/Marriage counselling
Problems forming or maintaining relationships
Social Anxiety
Anger or frustration that feels unmanageable
Feeling stuck in your life, confused or needing to find a more meaningful direction for your life
Bereavement and loss
Mild to moderate problems with addiction
Lacking motivation or sense of direction
Stress
Problems with food and body image
Trauma
Complex trauma
Unresolved difficulties from the past such as abuse or bullying
Questions around sexuality
Difficulties in parent/child relationship
Negotiating major life stage transitions
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Non-managerial supervision is an essential part of ethically sound counselling and psychotherapy. It is also a valuable means of
support in any work that involves working closely with others in a facilitating and challenging way. Clinical supervision is essential for those working intensively with people who are exploring inner conflicts and associated interpersonal difficulties. Supervision gives you the space for reflection, where you can re-examine and understand the processes taking place in the therapeutic relationship with your clients. It also provides the opportunity to continually develop your skills and knowledge.
My approach to supervision prioritises the formation of a strong working relationship with supervisees. I believe that a relational approach to supervision promotes resilience and confidence: Resilience necessary to meet the emotional demands of client work and confidence necessary to engage creatively in rigorous evaluation. I would describe my practice as being informed by the Gestalt approach, humanistic and existential thought and attachment theory. However, I enjoy working with practitioners from a variety of approaches.
"Deborah was my supervisor from Autumn 2019 to Winter 2021, I would always look forward to supervision as I knew I would have a supportive and resourceful session in an empathic and calm space. Deborah encouraged time to focus on myself as well as client which always made me feel heard and understood. The transition to remote working when covid came along was smooth and Deborah maintained the same space online as she did in person which was very reassuring. My time only ended with Deborah because I entered into an employed role where supervision was provided in house."
Personal & Professional Development Training
I offer training and development on a range of topics, however, an area of particular interest to me is rites of passage. Rites of passage are often major transition points in our lives that can offer an opportunity for enormous growth. For example, becoming a parent, reaching mid-life, the ending of a relationship, when a child leaves home, retirement, the death of a significant other, etc. In times past, the extended family, or the larger community often assisted with such transitions. In contemporary life however, these important passages sometimes have little recognition and we are often left to make sense of the experience for ourselves.
The significant changes involved in these transitions involve us negotiating some degree of loss before moving into a new stage of life. As result of my interest and experience in bereavement and loss, I have developed a particular interest in the field of conscious living/conscious dying. Far from being morbid, the reflective practice of facing up to our impermanence is hugely life-affirming. I facilitate workshops in this area, drawing on the inspired work of great thinkers such as Joseph Sharp, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Irvin Yalom, Steven & Ondrea Levine.