How I work

Though I use many therapeutic ideas and techniques, the Gestalt and Person-Centred approaches are basic to my work with clients and supervisees.

Both approaches involve the ability to be in touch with and express feelings - a vital skill because emotions provide information about our world that nothing else can. Both are grounded in the belief that we all naturally have within us the potential for positive change.

Gestalt

Becoming more fully aware of ourselves in the present moment is the starting point for Gestalt therapy.

When we slow down and experience life right here and right now, we become open to information about ourselves, our situation, and our relationships that we normally ignore or dismiss.

In particular, we become aware of important needs that are not being filled.
Accepting and meeting these needs naturally re-vitalizes and re-organizes the way we feel and act in the world. We discover the energy and clarity that come from being more fully in contact with ourselves and others.

Person-Centred Counselling

Carl Rogers, a founder of counselling, demonstrated scientifically that a person will grow and change in positive and self-fulfilling ways when in relationship with someone who genuinely offers accurate empathy and unconditional acceptance.

No one has a perfect childhood and we all learned to inhibit or disown at least some aspects of ourselves that those caring for us could not accept and understand.

In a genuine, accepting, empathic relationship, we can begin to re-own and put to use the energy and creativity tied up in those disowned parts of ourselves.

Supervision

I am available for supervision of counsellors and counselling students.

I believe that supervision must first of all be support. Working therapeutically with people not only challenges our skills and knowledge but (inevitably) evokes our own issues and, often enough too, doubts and fears about our competence and judgement. The regular support of an experienced, non-judgemental, genuine, and empathic colleague is invaluable.

This framework supports the second major aspect of supervision - examining our own part in the relationship we co-create with the client. I find Gestalt two-chair work very effective for this aspect of supervision.

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