Attachment-Based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Supervision in Walthamstow
Attachment-based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Welcome to my website. Life can be tough sometimes. We may have feelings we struggle to cope with or understand or we might have a decision or life change we struggle to navigate. In any instance therapy and counselling might be helpful. There may be a specific situation, relationship dynamic or feeling past or present you wish to explore or make sense of, particularly if this is creating unease or struggle in your life right now.
Attachment-Based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
I am a UKCP-registered attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist and counsellor. I have twenty years experience working with adults in individual one-to-one therapy both in person and online. Here are some of the ways I can help you:
Open ended Psychotherapy and Counselling
Open ended, or longer term, therapy offers an opportunity for you to gradually build a therapeutic alliance and explore your struggles more deeply over time. This can be a very enriching and fulfilling experience aimed at precipitating long-lasting change.
Time Limited Psychotherapy and Counselling
If resources do not allow for an open-ended approach, time limited therapy may be for you. We agree a fixed number of sessions, usually anything between 6 sessions and 20 sessions and focus on a particular issue at hand. You may wish to agree up front what particular issue you wish to focus on and we take a structured approach to tackling this issue.
Supervision
I offer one-to-one supervision for those psychotherapists and counsellors interested in an attachment-based framework. If you are a psychotherapist or counsellor and are interested in an attachment framework please do not hesitate to drop me a line.
The Initial Consultation
Depending on my availability, the next step is for us to talk on the phone when we will discuss your needs, expectations and interests from therapy in more detail. We will then arrange two initial consultations at my practice. This will consist of two 50-minute meetings a week apart with the first one telling me about your issues and expectations, circumstances and personal history and for me to tell you how I work. The purpose of the second meeting is to give you the opportunity to think about our potential work together, share how you felt being in the room with me and ask any questions that may have arisen out of the initial encounter.
If you are interested in any of these approaches and wish to find out more, you can visit the 'About Psychotherapy', 'About Nicky' and 'What to Expect' pages or drop me an email.
Wisdom from the Consulting Room.
Here is a wee place I will share a few thoughts and musings along various themes from my time spent with all those couragerous souls I meet everyday in my consulting room. I hope you too may find some of these thoughts and reflections helpful and if you wish to think about these ideas further please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Creating Space To Think and Consider
In the last few years I have been attending a regular yoga class and in doing so have noticed there is regular emphasis on creating space within the body; space in the lungs and back-body through deep slow breathing, space in the side body between the ribs through side stretching and space and openness in the heart-centre through back-bends to name a few. The importance of creating space in the body for our general wellbeing is regularly reiterated in these classes and so this has started me thinking about how we can create space in the mind as well as the body in order to think and feel and stabilise ourselves (harnessing our ‘rest and digest’ nervous system).
In my consulting room I often meet those, myself included here, who rush from one demand or duty to another compressed with all the things we have to do or fulfil throughout an ordinary day. This can often feel overwhelming, creating mental static that makes it difficult to think clearly, either through classic fear responses such as fight, flight or freeze.
I often encourage people in my consulting room to reflect back on a situation when they were compressed, anxious and couldn’t think clearly. Timing is important here so I do this when they are no longer steeped in it and have distance on it. Putting distance in between in terms of time or geography can be enormously helpful in creating psychic space as we likely will not be flooded with overwhelm and we may see the situation with more clarity. We can then explore together what it was about this situation that led to the freeze, who might have been involved and what the triggering elements were. From here we can then explore what could be done differently if this situation were to arise again in the future without shame or reproach. This in my experience can be enormously helpful in reminding people they have much more agency autonomy and control over their fear and anxiety responses.
If you struggle with this, create a quiet moment with a cuppa and think about times in the past when you have struggled and then take a note of what triggered the feelings, what you did and then what you would have ideally done instead without shame or reproach but with kindness and compassion.
If you are interested in counselling and psychotherapy contact me on 0208 509 2849.