Why Psychotherapy?
Most of us experience pain and distress at different times of our lives. You may be interested in psychotherapy because you are experiencing episodes of depression or anxiety or you may be experiencing recurrent problems either at work or at home. It may be that you are not at a point where you had hoped to be at this stage in your life.
Psychotherapy can be seen as a long term process, enabling you to explore the underlying patterns of relating that you have developed and the implications of the ways in which these reoccur in your day-to-day life. There may be ways of coping that helped you to manage in the past, but are causing you problems in current relationships. During your sessions you will be encouraged to talk about whatever is on your mind. This may be thoughts, feelings, memories, wishes, fears or dreams that can be explored to bring about new perspectives. Many difficulties have their origins in early significant relationships and may remain outside of conscious awareness. These early relationship patterns may be repeated in the therapeutic relationship where they hopefully can be contained and worked through, bringing about greater self awareness and long-lasting change. The aim of therapy is to help you to gain a greater sense of freedom when making choices in life. I offer individual psychotherapy sessions in my consulting room in my home in Dorking. Sessions last for 50 minutes. The therapy sessions with me are confidential. As is usual practice, I discuss my work in peer supervision with colleagues and all identifying information about individuals I see is fully anonymised.
A little bit about me...….
My first degrees were in Psychology (BA hons) and Social Work, at the University of Melbourne. In the early 1980’s I worked in addiction services in Melbourne, Australia. I then came to the UK where I worked as a social worker in acute psychiatric hospitals as well as working in Child and Family mental health services. I subsequently worked for several years at the Anna Freud Centre as a psychiatric social worker. In the late 1990s I worked with 18 to 25 year olds in a Youth Counselling Service in East London.
I trained with the Jungian stream of the British Psychotherapy Foundation (formally British Association of Psychotherapy) in the 1990’s. For the past 18 years I was a senior psychotherapist in an out-patient NHS psychotherapy service in Surrey.
In my NHS work I developed a particular interest in working with young adults aged 18 and over, though in more recent years much of my experience has been in work with people with a diagnosis of Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder using a Mentalisation Based Therapy (MBT} approach. I have done the MBT training at the Anna Freud Centre. I have also, for many years, provided supervision for Counselling Psychology trainees on placement in the psychotherapy department.
My professional registration is with the British Psychoanalytic Council. I maintain involvement in training events to keep myself up-to-date and belong to local groups for Continuous Professional Development.