Areas of Specialism

Relationship 

Have you ever wondered about the connection between relationship and trauma?  You have been in relationship since birth and that is how you have learnt most of your coping strategies, from the environment you were in.  It then makes sense that the majority of trauma that you have experienced has happened because you were, or are, in relationship with yourself, and with others.  You will have learnt a self-protective survival strategy, i.e., fight, flight, freeze, fawn, flop or friend which has kept you alive.  However, this self-protective survival strategy can be problematic in later years, especially when wanting to relate with others (who will also have self-protective survival skills). 

Loss and bereavement

In 2022 when the Queen died, the phrase ‘grief is the price we pay for love’ became popular.  In a nutshell, if you love wholeheartedly, you will grieve wholeheartedly.  Additionally, a loss that happens now can also release suppressed grief held across a life time (domino effect).  

Research shows that unprocessed grief can be a contributor to illnesses such as depression, anxiety and cancer.  For loss and bereavement to be processed your grief, and emotions, have to be connected with and your story heard as you move to finding a new way to build around your grief.   

As David Kessler states ‘grief is as unique as our fingerprint’ and we look at what has happened to you and how you want to integrate this into your own meaning making life story. 

Alcohol dependency

Alcohol impacts behaviour, moods, emotions and brain function. It is an individual and family illness and leads to mental and physical health issues.  Alcohol lowers inhibitions which mean you may be engaging in behaviours / risk taking which you would not normally do when sober and these behaviours can have lifelong consequences.  Alcohol misuse will impact your home, work and social environments.  In our work we will get to the root cause of why you drink, i.e., is it because you use it to change the way you feel?  As a crutch?  Or are you alcoholic with an allergy where the first drink gets you drunk? (the first two you can have control over, the later you do not).   

Childhood experiences / Attachment 

(including Adverse Childhood Experiences, Mother Wounding and Father Wounding).

If your child environment did not offer safety, security and consistency (conditions needed for ‘secure attachment’), you are likely to have learnt to give yourself up in favour of ‘attachment over authenticity’ (Gabor Maté )and will have an  insecure attachment styles ( anxious, avoidant or disorganised.)  This happens because you may have had emotionally unavailable parents, or you may have been subject to rules where you had to behave in a certain way, or were parentified (having to be a mini adult taking responsibility).  

If this resonates you may find you can feel confused and overwhelmed and may have a love / hate relationship with one of your parents, or both, and you may feel like ‘parts’ of your are in inner conflict, i.e., what society says and what you feel.  It may be that you additionally think of yourself as ‘bad’ as you could not think of your parents as bad.  

I have a saying ‘show me the boy and I will show you the man’ and ‘show me the girl and I will show you the woman’ as all humans are a combination of genetics, nature and nurture.  

Part of my therapy style is reparenting, also referred to as corrective emotional experiences.  This means we work together on your childhood experiences, and wounding, to begin to move you to a place where you can integrate these into your life story and 'heal from within' as you start to feel more comfortable in your own skin (authenticity).