Why Reconnect?
There is no ‘one size fits all’ in therapeutic work. According to the research, the most important factors for outcomes in therapy are (a) the quality of the relationship between the client and the therapist, and (b) the degree of ‘match’ between the therapist’s way of working and the client’s world view.*
Please scroll down if you’d like to read more about my approach and the different experiences and trainings that inform my work. These include Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, Embodiment Practices, Nature Connection and Group Work trainings.
*Essential Research Findings in Counselling and Psychotherapy, Prof. Mick Cooper (2009)
Psychotherapy Training
I accredited with UKCP as an Integrative Psychotherapist in 2015 following a four year training and 450 supervised client hours.
The training was a good grounding in psychotherapeutic practice and theory, and was also a deeply challenging interpersonal journey that re-shaped my understanding of myself and other people.
My approach has naturally shifted and grown in different ways over the years, but many of my core values were developed in this initial training.
Some of my Values as a Therapist and Facilitator
- Everyone is born with the capacity for growth, presence, awareness and love; and though this can get buried or lost at certain moments or stages of life, we all have the ability to reconnect to this.
- Healing can only happen when we are ‘grounded’, connected, present, embodied and aware of what is happening in our internal world.
- It is my role to help people to reconnect to their inner capacities, through my connection with them as whole individuals, and by facilitating deeper connection with nature, including ‘human nature’.
- Part of healing is reconnecting to the world around us, and to other people.
- I do my best to help people proceed at the pace that is right for them so that they can get or stay connected to their central awareness.
- I welcome all aspects of peoples’ experience with compassion and understanding.
- I am responsible for paying attention to my own inner process, and work with this with compassion and understanding.
- I am a guide and a resource for others, I do not and cannot ‘fix’ people.
- I use the knowledge and skills I have to help others, but I do not impose my world view on them.
- I maintain awareness of my responsibility to maintain clear boundaries and uphold ethical practice within the therapeutic relationship.
Internal Family Systems
I have trained in the Internal Family Systems model (levels 1-3), and have assisted in running many official IFS training programs. I have also done the IFS couples therapy qualification: IFIO
I have found IFS to be a particularly powerful and safe way of working, to the point where IFS now underpins all of my work. If you are interested in this really wonderful evidence based model please see the IFS Institute website for for more information (and/or contact me for a first hand experience of IFS 🙂 ).
In essence, IFS allows me to offer a space in which you can untangle your inner world, connect to the core of who you are, and ultimately heal the different parts of you.
This can have a profound effect on your relationship with yourself, the world and people around you.
Embodied Practice
For most people, the most powerful ‘way in’ to our inner landscape is through developing awareness of our body sensations. Thinking is important, but only represents a part of our total experience. The unconscious can be accessed in other ways, such as dreams and the imaginal. However, in my experience, psychological healing still usually requires an embodied experience.
My original psychotherapy training was heavily influenced by Gestalt Psychotherapy, which is an embodied approach. IFS is also a somatic approach – a way of accessing our inner experience by connecting to parts of our personality that usually first show up as feelings, emotions or sometimes medical conditions.
For me personally the journey into embodiment has been central. I started regular dancing and movement meditation practices such as 5 Rhythms in 2006. I have also completed 30 months of Authentic Movement training, which is a practice that evolved from observing infants’ body movements in their attachment relationships. I also have a regular yoga practice.
Every day of growth is a day of deepening into greater embodiment.
My Nature Connection Practice and Group Facilitation
Since an early age I have spent as much time as possible in nature. As a child I could often be found sitting in a tree. And I attribute much of my happiness today to my ability to enter into connection with nature in various ways. I love walking, running, gardening, wild swimming; anything that reconnects me.
In the last fifteen years or so I have developed a nature meditation practice.
Regularly spending time in nature just sitting, observing whats going on around me, and also what is happening inside me.
This practice has been developed partly alone, and partly through several, long, nature based meditation retreats and a vision quest.
My nature connection practice has also been influenced by the experience of co-facilitating a regular nature connection group near the Lake District using the Eight Shields Model. I also attended a week long camp based on this model.
My journey facilitating groups started with training in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and facilitating my own mindfulness training in 2010, and continued with the Eight Shields nature connection group mentioned above.
More recently I participated in the the year long International Facilitator Training Program with Nativ. This was a comprehensive group facilitation training program led by master facilitators.
I have completed the 18 month Living Tantra training with Jan Day. Which was the deepest, most loving and profound journey into understanding what it is to be a human and show up in relationship to other humans.
I also have 15 days training in Hakomi which is a relational group therapy model.
Please see the Workshops and Retreats page of this website for more details of my current workshop offerings.