How I work
Whether you are experienced in counselling and psychotherapy or new to it, I like to give you as much information as possible about my practice. Psychologists are trained in similar ways, especially at undergraduate level, but every clinician practises differently. Knowing how the process of therapy works, and why, helps you make an informed decision about the best approach for you and for your investment of time and money.
Over the years I have found that people prefer different approaches. The one that suits you best is likely to depend on your symptoms or diagnosis, your personality and your preferred way of learning, among other factors. For this reason I have trained and gained experience in a wide variety of psychological approaches to help individuals, couples and families achieve good mental health and wellbeing.
Some approaches, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, are direct and structured. They are typically used for the most common concerns, such as depression, anxiety and panic attacks. They focus on the present moment and are likely to resolve your symptoms more quickly, especially when what you are experiencing comes from present circumstances that have exceeded the coping mechanisms that usually serve you well.
When you have experienced trauma, neglect or sustained adverse circumstances over many years, therapies with greater reconstructive depth and more sessions will be needed. These include learning practices that bypass the programming of the rational mind, leading to a greater integration of the mind, body and transpersonal aspects of the person.
What sessions involve
All sessions involve a mixture of assessment, the presentation of your concerns and my responses to your needs. Those responses include psycho-education and therapeutic interventions. Psycho-education is the targeted sharing of psychological knowledge that helps you understand your emotional, thinking and behavioural experiences. Many therapeutic interventions aim to equip you with emotional, behavioural, cognitive and interpersonal skills to deal more effectively with life's challenges.
Regardless of the therapeutic framework, my approach always has you at the centre of the process. A non-judging, client-centred value is the foundation for every other approach.
If you would like to know more about my therapeutic practice, send me an email with your phone number and when you are available, and I will call you.
Scope of practice
Over the years I have worked with most mental health concerns and diagnoses. I work with adults, couples and families.
Therapeutic approaches
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
"People are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of them." Epictetus
The mind can be a great servant or a tyrannical master. The proposition of CBT is that the way we think and behave has a significant effect on our emotional and physical health: the way we think either adds to our suffering or increases our wellbeing. CBT is a direct and practical form of psychotherapy. It begins by identifying unhelpful thoughts and behaviours. Together we then apply a range of skills, tools and practices to correct unhelpful thoughts, emotional reactions and behavioural patterns, keeping the patterns that work and changing those that leave you anxious, depressed or generally miserable.
Through thinking and behavioural exercises, both in the therapy room and as homework, you increase your psychological efficiency. The more effort you put into the program, the quicker you gain skills and reduce your suffering.
Mindfulness Training
I have been practising and teaching meditation for the best part of 30 years. Mindfulness brings a range of positive psychological effects: greater subjective wellbeing, reduced symptoms and emotional reactivity, and better behavioural regulation. Developing mindfulness skills and establishing a practice is arguably the best psychological gain a person can make.
Mindfulness meditation is deliberately paying attention in a particular way: bringing your attention to the present moment without judging anything you notice. It is a way of being rather than a technique. Because of this attitude of not judging and not reacting, the best description of mindfulness is bare attention: the clear, single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us, and in us, at each moment of perception. Mindfulness training can be part of a therapy program designed to fit your needs.
Dialectical Behavioural Therapy
DBT is a skills-based therapy that integrates cognitive behavioural interventions with mindfulness meditation and eastern philosophy, and blends components of psychodynamic, client-centred, Gestalt and strategic approaches. It trains distress tolerance, aiming at acceptance and tolerance of psychological distress rather than avoidance of negative experiences.
With an emphasis on reducing self-destructive and self-harming behaviour, DBT is unique in its fluid movement between acceptance and change. It helps you accept and reduce distress, develop mindfulness skills, and learn interpersonal skills that make your communication more effective. It teaches us to recognise and reduce the psychological conflicts found in opposing needs and wants by striking a balance between acceptance and change, self-improvement and self-acceptance, independence and dependency.
DBT was developed for the treatment of borderline personality disorder. It has also proved effective with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders. I have trained with Marsha Linehan, the creator of DBT, and have many years of experience training clients to competency in these skills.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
ACT is primarily a behavioural therapy that helps clients break free from rigid belief systems and behaviour patterns. I have found it very effective and have used it with many clients across all types of concerns. People find ACT a respectful and hopeful way of working. It helps you make room for your thoughts and feelings rather than fighting them or feeling guilty about them. The goal is not to reduce the frequency or severity of unpleasant internal experiences, such as upsetting automatic thoughts, emotions or urges, but to reduce your struggle to control or eliminate them while increasing your involvement in meaningful life activities.
ACT has six integral components: acceptance, cognitive defusion, being present, self as context, values, and committed action.
Schema-Focused Therapy
Schema-focused therapy identifies and changes maladaptive schemas and the ineffective coping strategies that go with them. Schemas are the beliefs people hold about themselves, and the emotional reactions and behaviours they bring to relationships with others, that grew out of how their basic childhood needs were met.
The model is an integrative approach that combines the best aspects of cognitive-behavioural, experiential, interpersonal and psychoanalytic therapies in one process. Changing schemas requires both cognitive and experiential work, including visual imagery, Gestalt techniques, creative work to symbolise positive experiences, limited re-parenting, and the healing experience of a validating clinician.
Short Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
The principle at the core of short term psychodynamic psychotherapy is that the past has a strong influence on our psycho-emotional functioning in the present. It facilitates the rapid resolution of a broad spectrum of emotional disorders by resolving internal conflicts about feelings that were created in interactions with significant others during our developing years. These conflicts are at the centre of most psychologically based disorders.
The therapy focuses on existing thoughts, feelings and memories and follows the thread that links them to earlier situations or relationships. A deeper understanding is gained through the analysis of thoughts, feelings, dreams, images and memories, and by looking at how you are in your relationship with yourself and with others.
Pain Management
I have been helping clients afflicted by pain for many years. Chronic pain often has overwhelming effects on the sufferer and their family. Psychology can help by increasing a person's ability to cope with pain through managing thoughts, feelings and behaviours more effectively. Understanding the biological basis of pain helps too: pain, depression and anxiety travel similar pathways in the nervous system and share many of the same mechanisms, and the limbic region of the brain, which receives pain signals, shares many messengers with mood signals.
With my clients I design pain management programs based on a biopsychosocial perspective, addressing the biological basis of symptoms and the full range of social and psychological factors affecting pain, distress and disability. The aim is to help you deal better with the distress of pain and to embrace as full a life as possible, regardless of the limitations imposed by pain and disability. Strategies in my programs include:
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, to identify unhelpful negative thoughts and beliefs about pain and replace them with more accurate and helpful ones.
- Mindfulness exercises, which change the way the brain reacts to pain sensations and teach you to observe pain without letting it control your life.
- Relaxation techniques such as diaphragm breathing, progressive muscle relaxation and guided imagery, which reduce the stress and tension that make pain worse, and improve sleep as well.
- Hypnosis for pain management, which induces deep relaxation and offers suggestions to the subconscious mind that help you cope with pain.
Psychoeducation
Psychoeducation is an evidence-based intervention that combines psychotherapy and education, and it is among the most effective practices to emerge from both clinical trials and clinical settings. It helps you understand the various aspects of your psychological experience, including signs and symptoms, likely outcomes and prognosis. It also corrects misinformation and misconceptions about your condition, promotes awareness of treatment, and gives you both condition-specific information and tools for managing related circumstances.