Therapeutic orientations
As a Counselling Psychologist
I have an honours degree in Psychology and as a Counselling Psychologist I am trained in Person-centred, Psychodynamic, and CBT theories.
Whilst I am not a specialist in any particular theory it allows me to adapt to the complexity of each individual clients needs. Rather than working in one specific modality I will adapt to each individual clients needs at that time by looking out for and incorporating elements of different theories. In addition I may draw on tools I have developed myself or from other theories, in particular Mindfulness, Internal Family Systems and Parts Theory, and my own Spirals Theory. This may present as .....
* Engaging with the Here and Now to enable a catharsis of emotions in order for them to lose their power over you.
* Encouraging you to reflect back on past experiences to understand how you have come to this point now.
* Identifying and challenging externally constructed thoughts and help you to reconstruct new narratives that come from and work better for you.
* Identify young parts of the self that are driving current behaviours in order to bring them up to date with current circumstances.
* Encouraging the awareness of how the body is being experienced and responding to thoughts and issues as another way to access unconscious stuck emotions.
* Reflecting on the dynamics of our relationship in order to help understand and work with relational issues.
*Normalising the process of therapy in order to handle perceived relapses.
Which therapy is best for you?
TOP DOWN
Working with maladaptive thought patterns and beliefs directly to change feelings and behaviours
MINDFULNESS
Mindfulness is a helpful tool in order to slow clients down and help them to intentionally develop a greater awareness of their internal interactions between thoughts, feelings, behaviours and bodily epxeriences.
It enourages a more compassionate approach to self by encouaraging the self to come forward rather than to shut it off which is the cause of many problems.
Effective for when thought processes become too chaotic to manage or we get locked into a rigid place.
Key figures
Mark Williams, Jon Kabat-Zinn
linked
Intrinsically
PERSON CENTERED THERAPY
If you have already done a lot of self-help, believe you have good reflective capacity, and are aware your issues are more deep rooted or complex, then CBT may not be sufficient for long term change.
All talking therapy starts from a place of confidentiality, safety, and boundary setting in order to create effective change with your issues. Three fundamental principles created by Carl Rogers enable a therapeutic relationship to be formed in which a client can express and explore their internals elf.
Empathy, Unconditional Positive Regard and Congruence
Sessions continue until the client feels confident in coping alone for themselves.
Effective for
Lost sense of self or direction, personal growth, emotional detachment.
Key figures
Carl Rogers
Effective for
Relationship issues, past traumas, abuse and neglect, attachment issues, and complex issues.
Key figures
Sigmund Freud - Unconsciousness, dream analysis
Carl Yung - Collective unconscious, archetypes
John Bowlby - attachment theory
Melanie Klien - Object relations, developmental
PSYCHODYNAMIC
If you are aware of more deeper routed, historical or more complex issues then you may need a psychotherapeutic approach.
This may take longer because it needs a much more sensitive and slow paced approach in understanding and breaking down defence mechanisms before being able to affect any therapeutic change.
COGNITIVE
BEHAVIOURAL
THERAPY
(CBT)
Your GP may initially refer or recommend you to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), not because it is necessarily the right thing for you but because it is easy to prove as the most cost-effective due to it’s focused nature.
However many people have never had to reflect on or think about their mental health until a particular issue appears and so the act of doing so can be sufficient for creating change.
Sessions are solution-focused and over a brief and set duration of time.
Effective for
Anxiety, depression, phobias, addictions, targeted issues.
Key figures
Aaron and Judith Beck, Albert Ellis, Christine Padesky
FOUNDATIONS
Empowerment through emotional expression and self-direction in the Here and Now.
BOTTOM UP
Working with unconscious past experiences to facilitate change in feelings, thoughts and behaviours in the present
HOW I UNDERSTAND IT
Research has found links between Fibromyalgia and trauma, either early attachment trauma or domestic abuse.
Unexplained pain and fatigue can be a way of the body trying to communicate stressors and trauma in the body.
SPIRAL THEORY
HOW I WORK WITH IT
Through my Masters research and client work I have learnt about and recognised a relationship between unspecified health problems and emotional expression. This has led me to offer a compassionate and Mindful approach, to dealing with pain, fatigue, Fibromyalgia, and ME.
I explore and work with the underlying emotional stressors and conflicts that the body is trying to express. By using Parts theory we can help the body find it's own voice to express it's internal pain.
IFS is a particularly powerful tool in relation to trauma and early attachment work.
Key figures
Richard Schwartz - IFS
Bessel Van der Kelk - MRI research into the Polyvagal nervous sytem and Triune Brain
Peter Levine - Healing from the bottom up
Babette Rothschild - The Body remembers
Bessel Van der Kelk - IFS
Janine Fisher - Parts Theory
Internal Family Sytems and Parts Theory are fairly new to the world of Psychology (1980's) but scientific research through MRI brain scanning has discovered significant relationships between different parts of the brain in which we can work with therapuetically.
Linking also to body work we are able to now work with 'felt' parts that need healing rather than pre-frontal thinking parts of the brain. Using the body we can locate the past child parts of the whole family sytem that need to have their say so that the present 'self' can help bring them up to date to the present.