Counselling and Body psychotherapy
Finding a therapist can be daunting for lots of reasons, particularly if it's your first time in therapy. My hope is that the information on this page gives you a flavour of how I work so you can start to get a sense of whether it might resonate with the way you work and what you're looking for.
Clients. The people I work with are from a multiplicity of cultural backgrounds, identities, and living situations. I work with clients from a whole spectrum of gender and sexual expressions and adults of all ages, for example. People who come along might be completely new to therapy, or seasoned practitioners themselves. It matters to me that my therapy practice is as accessible and anti-supremacist as possible and run with kindness, in full awareness that cultural healing is an ongoing, deepening thing, in myself and others.
The therapy relationship. I see the quality of the relationship between the client and the therapist as important as a sound theoretical and experiential training and grounding in different therapeutic approaches. Being receptive to each new client coming for therapy is an art, and is at the heart of the way I approach my work. Each person coming for therapy is unique and therefore the process of working therapeutically with each different person is unique. What I find most important for therapy to be useful and effective is to create between us a respectful and collaborative relationship supporting therapeutic and healing work to happen. And, of course, it's a confidential space.
What clients bring. 'What's therapy for?' is a question I return to again and again in my own reflecting, because it can be about very different things for different people at different times. For some, therapy is about meaning-making, for example, after a shocking, or perhaps a complicated bereavement. Maybe it's to explore how to live in the face of climate emergency. For other folks it's about an aspect of identity, or figuring out how to rebuild life following ill health or a change in life circumstances, for example, newly arriving here in England. Maybe it's healing the trauma of an abusive past or understanding the less helpful patterns inherited or passed down from parents or ancestors even further back in our family lineages.
An integrative, relational, body-based approach. I work integratively, which is therapy speak meaning that I draw upon an integration of quite a few different counselling and psychotherapeutic traditions and approaches. I was originally trained in the Humanistic tradition and have since integrated approaches from the psychodynamic tradition and from somatic and body psychotherapy in particular, theory and practice which includes awareness of the body; its gestures, movements as well as paying caring attention to where we might feel more disoriented or confused (find out more about body psychotherapy.)
The particular body psychotherapy tradition within which I have trained is known as Embodied-Relational therapy. I have also trained in pre and peri natal somatic psychology and am fascinated by how the experience from pre conception, conception, through our gestation and onwards to our experience birth and our early days on planet earth shape us in the present day. I have also trained as a healer and am fascinated by different energy models and the more energetic, less verbal aspects of this work. Having been a practising Buddhist for nearly 30 years I also draw upon my experience of mindfulness and loving-kindness, the practice of ethics and practising Buddhist/Dharmic teachings regarding the nature of self, body-mind and how to live.
Indoors and out. I offer therapy sessions both indoors and outdoors, given that both are valuable contexts for learning and therapeutic change and are part of my deepening engagement as an ecopsychologist. For some clients being outdoors offers the conditions to be more aware of the immediacy and vibrancy of their aliveness, reflected back through the elements and other people and beings. It can also feel more challenging, given that who or what will be encountered is less known. Working outdoors can take many forms: simply going outside and noticing what changes in the therapy, going for a guided walk or holding a ceremony or ritual in a place which has meaning to a client for a particular reason. You can read a bit more about 'Wild therapy' here.
'Spiritual' accompaniment. Perhaps because I am a practising Buddhist and interested in healing in faith contexts some clients come to see me with an interest in mindfulness and/or spiritual accompaniment, others because of the themes of the books I have authored. I put the world 'spiritual' in inverted commas here, as it can mean such different things to different people - spiritual is a broad church! I've worked with quite a few activist clients and change-makers, who are interested in meditation or some form of quietening, in balancing being and doing - perhaps recovering from burnout - knowing when to rest and when to act. The unseen and more liminal aspects of life are familiar and welcome in my therapy room. Vibrant, well intentioned ancestors and spirits of place are welcome, too.
'Meditating with character' meditation mentoring. Since the publication of my first book' Meditating with Character' I have found that clients sometimes want to do one to one work exploring the book's somatic themes. These are concerned - in an experiential way - with our embodying and disembodying tendencies with the aim of feeling more 'at home' in our own skin and in our relationship with others and the wider world. I like to think of 'character structure' - a key aspect of the book - as a celebration of how we have each found our way to being incarnate, and the universality and yet the distinctness of each of us humans roaming the planet.
'Other than mother' and the parenthood decision. Since the publication of my second book 'Other than Mother' I have very much appreciated working with clients in the midst of the parenthood decision - the pros and cons and the possibility and potentiality of conscious conception. I love supporting clients and couples in this decision-making process - whatever they ultimately decide. If they decide to start a family I am glad to support them, given the impact of consciousness and care on the next generation in this intimate area of life. If they decide to remain childfree I am happy to see the unfolding of their creativity rather than procreativity.
The bigger picture. Cultural work and internationalism have mattered alot to me all my life and I am ongoingly engaged in how the wider social, economic, ecological, and political backdrop and other-than and more-than-human human life influence my offerings as a therapist, the clients I work with and the therapeutic relationship. Much of my work has explored this terrain; my prior academic training as a social scientist, my practical work on sustainable development projects in sub Saharan Africa, my experience to date as a therapist and my facilitation work with activists, engaged Buddhists, and those working for social and ecopsychological change. For me, writing has always been a form of activism. I am a member of Climate Psychology Alliance and the UK's Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility (PCSR), and a former member of PCSR's steering group, and former editor of PCSR's in house magazine 'Transformations'.
Therapy as a microcosm of this bigger picture. I'm acutely aware that what happens in the therapy relationship is a microcosm of the 'bigger picture' discussed above. I am conscious, for example, of the aspects of my identity which endow me with greater privileges than many others in therapy and beyond, given that I am middle class, postgraduate educated and heterosexual. I am or have been CIS gendered, yet increasingly resonate with gender fluidity.
I am also aware of the identities which can be 'invisibilising' for me and others, for example: living with a long-term chronic health condition, being white with a dual heritage Mum with ancestors from India and South Asia whose existence was (tragically) flatly denied thanks to the racism, classism, casteism which fuelled the British colonisation of India. I recognise some form of neurodivergence in myself. I say all this partly as a means of introduction and partly because the counselling and psychotherapy trade/profession (I prefer the former term) is still a very privileged place. Whilst it was a huge financial and time/resource commitment for me to train, I’m very aware that even being able to train as counsellor or psychotherapist is off limits for a lot of people, and, in parallel, paying for therapy and knowing how to access it as a client is still inaccessible.
Affiliations/qualifications. I am registered and accredited with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and a senior accredited member of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS). I practice in accordance with both organisation's ethical framework and code of ethics. Read more about my relevant qualifications. Find out more about the practicalities of coming for therapy.