I am a psychotherapist based in Stoke Newington, on the border of Dalston. I offer a private, strictly confidential, and non-judgemental service. I stress the last point in the belief that psychotherapy has the potential to be one of the few truly non-judgemental relational spaces available to us. It focuses on the individual's experience, however challenging, highlighting those that for various reasons remain largely unexpressed or unacknowledged – perhaps because they are painful, frightening, overwhelming, shameful, or simply seen as wrong.
In my practice, I treat established conditions, such as complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I also work with less defined, repetitive relational patterns; unconscious tendencies to repeat damaging behaviour.
Having an integrative training, my practice is informed by multiple approaches, including CBT. The core is however psychodynamic, which for me, means that I try to get a full picture of what you are struggling with, and an understanding of how you got there. As I understand it, such work centres on three primary areas. The first is loss, which may concern death, but more often refers to areas of loss within relationships – loss of care, respect, support, consideration, desire, etc. The second is trauma, and although loss can certainly be experienced as traumatic, trauma emphasises an element of violation which may not be present in loss. It describes experiences which breach or break the 'usual order of things'; brutal or frightening experiences which have little place within our general conception of the world, or within the world as we feel it should be. These two areas refer to an injury. Psychotherapy cannot change the fact that it happened. It instead works with the third area of focus, the response to injury. How did one adapt in order to be able to live with loss and trauma, and might there be other ways of doing so? Ones which are perhaps less costly – less destructive and painful? These are ingrained patterns – defence mechanisms and modes of coping – that we are hardly aware of. We notice them only indirectly from the evidence of our stumbling. Clearly something is wrong, but it is hard to say what or why exactly. Why am I stuck in this situation? Why does the same thing always seem to happen to me? Why can I no longer function properly or as I would like to? Why do I do this thing? Why do I treat people in this way? Why can't I grieve? What are these feelings about? Why do I feel nothing?
The other approach that I employ, is cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). CBT is immensely helpful in working with defined disorders, as many of its strategies are designed for targeted work. In my own practice, I use theoretical insights derived from CBT, in order to understand how certain behaviors maintain a condition or situation. I find that if behavioral cause and effect links are repeatedly highlighted, and their relationship clearly understood, then this provides the necessary framework for changing a habitual behaviour.
I am happy to answer any questions, so do feel free to contact me if you have any, or to discuss setting up an initial appointment.