I Offer An Integrative Approach To Therapy
As an integrative therapist, I draw upon my knowledge and experience to help me to understand what has brought you to therapy and how to support you to heal and make changes.
An Integrative approach incorporates elements of different approaches to meet the individual needs of each client.
Humanistic Approaches
Humanistic therapies focus on self-awareness, self-development and growth. They seek to help a person to recognise their strengths, creativity and choice in the 'here and now'.
Humanistic therapies encourage viewing ourselves as a "whole person" greater than the sum of our parts.
Humanistic therapies encourage a person to learn to understand how negative responses to life events can lead to psychological discomfort. The approach aims for acceptance of both the negative and positive aspects of oneself.
Person-Centered Therapy
The core purpose of the person-centered approach is to facilitate the personal growth and relationships of an individual.
A Person-Centred Therapist will provide support to help their client overcome the problems that are hindering their personal development and progress.
The three core conditions that reflect the attitude of the therapist to a client are:
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Empathy - the therapist strives to understand the client's point of view.
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Congruence - the therapist is open and genuine.
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Unconditional Positive Regard – the therapist is non-judgemental, positively valuing the client as a person.
Therapy is offered in a comfortable setting where a client can feel at ease, accepted & better understand their own feelings - helping them to reconnect with their inner values and sense of self-worth.
Psycho-Dynamic Approaches
This approach focuses on how our behaviour and feelings as adults are rooted in our childhood experiences.
Psycho-dynamic therapy takes the view that our unconscious holds onto painful feelings and memories, which are too difficult for the conscious mind to process. In order to ensure these memories and experiences do not surface, many people will develop defences, such as denial and projection.
Attachment-Based Therapy
Attachment-based therapy has, at its core, an understanding of the importance of relationships to human growth and development throughout life.
Our early attachment experiences, with our primary carers, influence our patterns of communication, emotional experience, intimate relationships, and way of living in the world.
Secure and supportive relationships enable us to develop a sense of who we are. If our early attachment experiences are insecure, we may struggle with difficulties in our intimate relationships — leading to anxiety, depression, and excessive anger.
Attachment-based therapy aims to provide the opportunity to explore past and present relationships.​ Elements of early care-giving that create “secure attachment”—presence, attunement and empathy—are the very elements that help create conditions for healing in therapy.
Development of a sense of safety and trust in therapy leads to reprogramming "rules" about relationships, with possibilities for more healthy functional relationships.
Healing Trauma
A traumatic event can involve a single or repeated experiences, that completely overwhelm the individual’s ability to cope or integrate the thoughts and feelings involved in that experience. In essence, your nervous system gets stuck in overdrive.
Successful trauma treatment must address this imbalance and re-establish your physical sense of safety; healing trauma through the body by focusing on bodily sensations, rather than thoughts and memories about the traumatic event. By concentrating on what’s happening in your body, you gradually get in touch with trauma-related energy and tension.
Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy helps you process and evaluate your thoughts and feelings about a trauma. It does not treat the physiological effects of trauma, but can be helpful when used in addition to a body-based therapy.
