Integrative

I draw on many approaches depending on your needs. We may work with a developmental approach that explores your past history and traumatic or difficult experiences. We may focus on the present moment: how do you feel now, in this moment, in this relationship? I may use a technique called Somatic Experiencing to work with your Autonomic Nervous System. Or we may explore transpersonal matters such as meaning, calling, soul, ecology and the more-than-human.

Relational Counselling

Human beings are born, and continue to be, entirely relational. No other animal has our capacity for building relationships through facial expressions and words. We survive by co-operating, and our emotions can be helpfully regulated by those around us. Yet exactly because we are so dependent on each other, we can be wounded by inadequate, abusive or toxic relationships.

It may be easier to say what non-relational counselling is. Giving advice will disempower the client. A counsellor who pretends to be ‘fixed’ may make the client feel ‘broken’. Using textbook methods disrespects the client’s unique soul. A counsellor who fails to challenge a client but colludes with them is non-relational. A counsellor who dominates the client is non-relational.

A counsellor who is an ‘angel’ or a ‘devil’ is failing to be that most uncertain and indefinable thing, human.

Counselling, if it is to be helpful, must always be relational.

Transpersonal Psychology

My overall framework is transpersonal. This means that I consider my client to be more than just an individual and separate ego bounded within a body. The ego and the body are, so far as we know, limited in time and will come to an end. For non-transpersonal schools of psychology (which means most traditions), death is the ultimate psychological challenge and generates all of our neuroses. I don’t believe that this is the case.

There are many dimensions of life that go beyond the personal, such as the biosphere that supports us, love and human connection, spirituality, beauty, meaning and the soul’s calling. Many people understand this and it is part of their experience.

Somatic Experiencing

This is a technique developed by Peter Levine, based on the work of neuroscientist Stephen Porges. SE works with the Autonomic Nervous System to release trauma that may be stuck in the body from past experiences. It can sometimes produce dramatic and lasting change in the client’s physiology and emotional health, releasing energy for healthy and balanced living.

Some practitioners use SE as a stand-alone technique. I do not work in this way since so many of our problems are relational in nature. I employ SE methods as appropriate, within the holding of the therapeutic relationship.