Issues I work with
Clients come to me for many reasons - these have often been amongst them...
Anxiety and Stress
Anxiety can appear in our lives in many forms. From a generalised sense of dread to specific fears around particular parts of our lives, who we are, the future, or the past. It can be provoked by an overload of stress - at home, at work or elsewhere. My approach is to work with it in three ways. Firstly to help you find ways to deal with the feelings in the moment, techniques that can support you to regain your mental balance when the feelings are intense. Then to work with you to unpack some of the drivers of the feelings within - some of the thoughts, feelings, history or assumptions which might be fuelling your anxiety, and what they might mean. Thirdly to help you put in place practices and ways of thinking that will help you move out of your anxiety.
Grief and Loss
Grief doesn't come with a timetable. When you've lost someone important, it can feel overwhelming and hopeless. You might find it difficult to be able to share your feelings with others as you watch life go on, feeling alone and not wanting to share a pain that you worry they wouldn't really understand anyway. In our work together you can bring it, all of it, and you'll find in me someone who can listen and support you. We can gently move through it all to find a mental place in which you can honour the memory of your loved one, but also manage ilife and start to move forward again.
Grief and loss of years ago, unfelt or suppressed at the time, can also return to our lives much later too. I have had clients bring this to our work and we have gently worked to give the feelings a voice.
The effects of abuse
Dealing with the after effects of abuse - either recently or years ago - can be very difficult. The feelings we may be left with may be powerful, painful and hard to face. Sometimes they can be buried in a place inside that we're scared to go. Sometimes they appear in other, seemingly unconnected ways. We can work together to gently approach them, face them, talk about them, come through them.
Low self worth
We can become powerfully affected by the way we have been treated in life - by our parents, families, partners, colleagues, peers, even by wider society itself. Or it can be the consequence of events, and what we tell ourselves about those events and our part in them. The effects of these factors may not always be immediately obvious, but they can mount up, eating into us. Sometimes, all this can go back years, creating ways of thinking about ourselves that have become habitual. Moving past them can mean making these patterns visible, questioning them, letting them go. Or realising that the feelings we have about ourselves aren't the result of something intrinsic within us, they were stimulated in us by others, or shaped by particular ways of seeing events. We all have a huge worth as human beings - if yours seems to have gone missing, we can work together to rediscover it and support it.
Questions of identity - including sexual and gender identity
Who actually am I? It's a deceptively complex question that many of us ask at various points in our lives. What do I want and need to be happy? How can I get in touch with the parts of me that are going to help guide me towards a meaningful future? Sometimes it can feel that we've lost touch with our true selves, in the lives, work, relationships we have built. If this feels true for you, we can work towards peeling back the layers to help you re-find your sense of direction based on a you that you recognise and like.
Questions of identity can also be framed around your sexuality or gender identity too. If that's you, if you are confused, ashamed, or scared about what's going on for you, you'll find in me an experienced and thoughtful person who will will work affirmatively with you to find the right way forward for you. No pathologisation, no expectations, no preconditions, no value judgements.