Systemic Family & Couples Psychotherapist

I believe in starting therapy by building a trusting relationship. This can then help you to share events or personal stories that may have been hard to voice. Therapy can allow you the time to make meaningful connections between how you think, feel, understand, and behave. Family Therapy is particularly interested in the impact on relationships, noticing patterns, and how they may have become useful to you.

I can work individually with clients- but I also welcome multiple people as part of therapy; by offering a space to facilitate compassionate and curious conversations with your significant others. The benefit of doing therapy together is it can notably help to cope with experiences of stress; low mood, anger, worries, to achieve desired goals, and improve relationships.

I aim to create a relaxed, conversational and collaborative space- hoping to ignite curiosity, reflection and solutions about your difficulty. There will be space for frustrations, tears, and good humour at times. Sessions will include gentle challenges using therapeutic techniques, which will help with making changes to your usual patterns and to find new ways of coping.

Longer term changes can often be at a slow place, but therapy can help set change into motion and support different stages of recovery. 

I have been attracted to a relational approach of psychotherapy, inspired by Narrative & Brief Solution Focused methods. This is an integrated goal focused approach which works together with the client (and their significant others), to better understand the stories which we tell about ourselves - some of which can become stuck or no longer helpful to us. I will work creatively and with interest to understand these stories in liberating ways with you.  

Working with Children and Family Therapy

Through training I have developed skills in taking playful approaches to serious problems (Epston & Freeman, 1997). Using a child focussed and creative approach has taught me the importance of setting up a supportive and safe environment to get the best out of people. My work with young people is interested in collaborating with the important people who surround them, to develop existing strengths and build connections to improve outcomes. 

Sometimes sessions for young people will work 1:1. But usually, effective treatment plans include a mixture of sessions which can include multiple members of the family, or parent focussed sessions. 

Experience and Training

I initially studied Psychology (Bsc), followed by a Masters (Msc) in Cognitive Neuroscience. I have since trained at the Tavistock and Portman Hospital, London, to complete a second Masters in Systemic and Family Psychotherapy to help me offer advanced psychotherapies to couples and families. My focused research topics have included areas of Anxiety, Attention, Autism, Gender and sexuality.

I am registered with the Association of Family Therapists (AFT) and United Kingdom Council of Psychotherapy (UKCP). 

My 13 year career working in the NHS include s services for Neurorehabilitaition, Forensics and the Child and Adolescent Mental Health services. 

My special interests include working with themes of relational trauma, medical conditions or life changing illness, neurodiversity, couples, separations, sexuality, and bereavement.  For the last 10 years I have specialized in working with Children, Families and Couples.

I have additional training in the following:

• Foundation Level in Nonviolent Resistance (NVR) 

• NVR and the application to OCD and other anxiety disorders. 

• Single Session Thinking, SST (Bouviere Centre) 

• PACE Approach (Playful, Accepting, Curious and Empathy) 

• CBT Intermediate (Association of Psychological Therapies, APT)