What I’ve learned

Experience has taught me that anxiety can serve us well by keeping us on the ball. Fighting it would create the very inner conflict we want to avoid. What I have learned – what you can learn – is how to respond constructively to hard times and difficult circumstances.

Everyone has the potential for personal growth, given the right conditions.

I’ve found that my approach works well with a lot of people. In particular, a lot of my clients have identified as disabled, chronically ill or neurodivergent.

I know from my own lived experience with Dyspraxia that toxic positivity may well be the last thing you want to hear.

Ableism is rife in our society so pretending disability does not negatively affect people is ludicrous. Instead, I have helped my clients to push back when they can and cope when they cannot. I don’t like labels but if I have to I will call this an Existential approach to therapy.

What happens in our sessions?

A sessions with me typically begins with an invitation for you to share your story. That might mean discussing a childhood event or one from last week. It is your therapy session so you get to decide.

You set the tone. We might laugh, we might cry or we might just sit in each others’ company.

If you do have something to discuss we will work together to make sense of it. This usually means focusing on your emotional state both at the time and looking back. A key consideration will be how constructive your emotional response was.

I firmly believe that there are no such thing as bad emotions. There are times it is entirely justified to be angry, sad, nervous or ashamed. The trick is learning how to turn emotions to our advantage.

As we build your self esteem we can collaborate on reframing your emotions. As we work towards the end of the session we will hope to agree on strategies for working with your emotions rather than against them.

This can be done in Person at my Park Square practice room, via Zoom or even over the telephone.