Why therapy?

Therapy is an opportunity to understand ourselves. It’s an opportunity to shine a light onto our feelings and minds, and gain insight into the reasons why we think, do, and feel the things we do. This is important because without insight we tend to think and act in ways that are not always in our best interests. Odd as it might seem, we can often be our own worst enemy and tragically, not even realise it!

In addition, the role of being human is often a difficult one. In fact, it’s often the everyday challenges that bring people to therapy. It’s normal to have family problems, relationship issues, and work stress.  This is the emotional work of being an ordinary human being and what therapists assist with on a daily basis.

In short, people who come to therapy are usually at a point where they recognise that something is not working, either within themselves, or in their lives. Something has derailed them from their true path in life. Whether that’s a trauma, a psychological disorder, a pattern of relating, a symptom, or an event, therapy affords us an opportunity to sit back in a quiet and safe space, where we can think, feel, experience, and ultimately grow.

For me, the therapeutic experience is a delicate balance between acknowledging and challenging those survival strategies that have (often inadvertently) been holding the person back in life, verses a celebration of the wonderful intrinsic, natural self that often gets neglected, forgotten or changed.

My therapeutic approach:

I have a background in Psychodynamic Therapy, which essentially means I take nothing for granted about anyone! Everyone is unique, with a unique struggle. Symptoms are similar in terms of theory, but the lived experience of those symptoms is unique. In this sense, people are their own experts. On the other hand, people also often sit in my therapy chair with frustrations at repeating the same patterns in their lives; in this sense, they’re also often a mystery to themselves! I use theory to unravel the mystery and together, we work towards understanding the stories and hidden parts that plague them. Through deep empathy and compassion, these hidden parts (or the why we do, feel, and / or behave in the particular ways we do) become less scary, or tolerable to be with. 

I also use Schema Therapy to help me understand and intervene with a client’s problems. Schema Therapy is an integrative therapeutic approach, which means it combines different styles of therapy, including, attachment-based work (which emphasises understanding and working through the effect of unmet psychological need in our early years), CBT (Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy – essentially challenging our assumptions around negative thoughts and behaviour), and relational approaches (how we engage with, and feel about others). Importantly, it is emotionally-focused, which means, it seeks to make change at a deeper feeling level, rather than just a cognitive, insight-oriented one. This has been shown to be more beneficial on a long-term basis for a person, and has the potential to have a powerful impact, one that can enable the challenging and shifting of entrenched and unhelpful patterns of functioning. I like to say that, over time, Schema Therapy helps the person become their own therapist. 

I am currently working towards completing a professional certification in Schema Therapy (as recognised by the International Society of Schema therapy (ISST), which is an international qualification that endorses a therapist’s skill-set in this method.

Although constantly grounded in theory, I remain committed to making therapy accessible to people by breaking concepts down and explaining them slowly to clients. This can aid the kind of “light-bulb moments”, where clients often connect in a visceral way with an issue. In this sense, therapy aims to be both informative and useful, as well as emotionally fulfilling. I also remain open to feedback and believe that effective therapy requires constant engagement and reflection between client and therapist, and to this end, I engage in regular moments of touching base with goals and how my clients are finding the therapeutic process.