WHAT TO EXPECT

First session:

Please feel welcome to contact me by phone or email to discuss your needs and ask questions. We could then arrange an initial meeting to see if you would like to work with me and if I can work in the best way for you. This would probably be for around 20 - 30 minutes and there would not normally be a charge for this.

You can explain why you have come, what you are looking for, and what you are not looking for; and I will try to answer any questions you ask. You may agree to complete an ACE questionnaire for us to have a shared idea of your needs.

If we agree to work together, we would agree session place and times, and where possible the number and frequency of sessions. It can be helpful to work e.g. for 6 sessions to begin with, and, towards the end of this block, to review how the work is going and if further sessions would be helpful.

Subsequent sessions:

By using the body’s natural responses to defend itself and to return to a state of calm and playful curiosity, we can work together to help you to regulate the way you feel. We help you to complete the incomplete defence impulses gently, a little at a time, This helps you regain a sense of ‘I can’ and helps you to self-regulate giving you a sense of increased control over your responses.

When you no longer feel overwhelmed to a point of paralysis or being out of control, new meanings emerge: you can have a calmer space to think and work out how you feel about life, what are your values, and what changes you might like to make to build better relationships, live more fully, and have a greater sense of freedom.  Often people discover that they can start to pay attention to their own body, to notice the early warning signs of disturbance (activation) or relief/pleasure (expansion) and to learn small movements that can make a huge difference to how they feel.

My choice of how to work is to choose the model or approach that best responds to how you are each session.  For example, we can use SE to help you calm and ground yourself both in the sessions and in daily life thereby helping you feel more confident; to be able to separate how you feel certain emotions or sensations without feeling many all at once, and we might help you to complete your body's need to defend itself e.g after a threat, accident, medical operation, or fall. We might use NeuroAffective Touch if you wanted to work with early trauma, fear of abandonment/being alone/not belonging/anger or shame.  And, throughout, we can use the framework of contemporary psychotherapy to begin to understand your reactions to yourself and to other people, and to help you have more of a choice in how you relate in future. 

We can have a review at the end of each session, or at the end of each block of sessions, to help you feel in control of how we work.

Click here to find links to all sorts of information on the neuro-science that supports this more holistic way of working and on those terms (SE, NeuroAffective Touch and contemporary psychotherapy). For a brochure on Somatic Experiencing and its use in trauma recovery, click here.