"WHAT YOU RESIST...
PERSISTS"
I always had a desire to work with the human psyche, having a seemingly innate drive to support others as they explored their emotions, thoughts and behaviour. I felt this from a very young age. I studied psychology in my own time from the age of 14 through to my first degree and then counselling for my second degree.
My life experience and career didn't reflect my true desires until the last few years; much of my first 30 years of this life were spent resisting my natural path. While successful in my 10 year career in banking, I was always aware of an underlying dissatisfaction but chose to resist this in favour of progressing in my "good" job. I also resisted this lack of fulfilment in personal relationships.
As I continued to resist I attracted more and more negativity in my life before bravely responding to a desire to return to my natural path: I re-commenced my studies, starting a degree in counselling and psychotherapy, and began to practice yoga; I immersed myself in both with incredible dedication and surprising ease. Life started to make sense. Rather than resist, I began to understand that one can find inner peace by becoming aware of all resistance and to make the conscious choice to simply let life be as it is.
After a transformative few years of deep self study and training through person centred and yoga philosophy, I decided to live my path by sharing my knowledge of self exploration, and do so through various channels using the felt senses and connection, namely counselling and yoga. This sharing synthesises with a deeper experience of my individual consciousness, thereby realising the embodied experience of how we are organically connected as part of a larger whole.
I approach emotional distress from a trauma-informed perspective (Gabor Matè, Stephen Porges, The Holistic Psychologist etc); these can be helpful even where trauma isn’t necessarily perceived, as all struggle usually arises from resisting pain of some description, and so using a trauma lens can be really effective. This is done predominantly through talking therapy. Additionally, if appropriate, I can help you to use yoga as a way to regulate the nervous system, using the body to help with mental/emotional barriers, and vice versa. If it resonates I also work intuitively, which can add an additional layer of depth. As somebody who identifies as Neurodivergent, I have recently begun specialising in working with people who also experience life differently due to Neurodivergence.
All of the practices I use are bound together by Carl Rogers' person centred approach, which I am trained in as a core therapeutic model. Together this makes for a pretty wide and flexible approach to addressing clients' distress; or, if things aren't so challenging, but needing improvement, perhaps addressing a desire to move from survival to thriving in life.
Person-centred counselling is a humanistic approach that deals with the ways in which individuals perceive themselves consciously, and it is in contrast to the more well known approaches which involve interpretation of an individual's unconscious thoughts or ideas and then recommending solutions. The person-centred approach ultimately sees human beings as having an innate tendency to develop towards their full potential. However, this ability can become blocked or distorted by our life experiences - particularly those that affect our sense of value. I work to understand an individual's experience from their point of view.
Another aspect of the counselling I offer is to take it outside of the typical environment of an indoor space to the outdoors, whether it be a simple walk in a park, by a lake, in the forest, or climbing a beautiful mountain. This is an innovative way of providing counselling and is very different to adventure therapy or outdoor activities that are therapeutic, I aim to provide the same (or perhaps enhanced) experience of counselling by taking the work outdoors.
Councelling
Before arranging any regular sessions we would go through the initial session, without further commitment, where we will discuss how working with me can help. At this session we will discuss further what's going on for you, I will give you more details about how I work and hope to support you, and then make arrangements for your ongoing sessions if this feels right for you. I decided to work this way as a quick chat isn’t usually enough to properly explore both what’s going on and how I hope to support with that; in most circumstances clients do want to progress to arranging regular sessions, so it can be better to get started with a decent first session.
All sessions, including the initial session, are 50 minutes long and cost £65. I leave an hour to allow for some settling in time at the beginning and to make any arrangements we need to at the end. I work from my home in Warcop, Cumbria. I also work online via Zoom for those whom I work with remotely.