speaking into the silence

  • As a practising psychotherapist, I work with presence as a primary foundation, which entails deep receptive awareness, with all senses activated.

    In my private practice, I work with a range of presenting issues. The work I do in the consultation room is to explore —guided by a compassionate integrative approach that is intrarelational, analytic, existential, and phenomenological—the complex interplay between past experiences and how these shape and impact on present choices, conscious and unconscious.  

    I have a special interest in working with clients with a history of self-abandonment as a survival strategy, resulting from relational or developmental trauma. I also have an interest in working with clients with experiences of prolonged periods of non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOCs), who are seeking a non-pathologizing transpersonal informed existentialist psychotherapist to support integration.

    The impact of developmental or relational deficits on adult lives can be the cause of deep suffering and distress, to the extent that the pain becomes too much to bear alone.

  • My experience is that it is never one thing that we seek therapy for.

    From an existentialist-analytic perspective, there is the the thing that is causing us issue, along with how we organise our being to accommodate the thing causing us issue.

    Reasons for seeking therapy can be as difficult, as it is easy to name.

    It may centre around existential, relational or intrarelational challenges, or concerns within fields of the psyche or phenomenon.

    My experience lies in helping those who have struggled with:

    • anxiety, dread

    • disassociation, hypervigilance,

    • inability to act, or frozen states

    • low-self esteem, low confidence

    • relationship challenges, chaotic relationships

    • depressive episodes

    • insomnia, panic attacks, ocd, or phobias

    • prolonged low mood, loss of creativity, loss of vitality

    • Loss of intimacy and sexual desire

    • loneliness, boredom, feelings of lack of fulfilment or purpose in life

    • self harming behaviours, disordered eating, dependencies on people and substances

    • attachment difficulties

    • detrimental repetitive patterns, permissive behaviour, compulsive behaviour

    • distorted self image / body image

    • high aggression

    • general self-destructive feelings, sense of futility, or suicidal thoughts

    I am anti-pathology and stand against all forms of coercive oppression. This includes psychiatry and its forceful use of pharmacological medication to suppress process, and forced adoption of pathologized labels as a condition of accessing mental health care, whilst recognising that for some a diagnosis can provide clarity and access to services actively sought.

  • How to open to more choice in the present one finds oneself in could be said to be what this therapeutic endeavour is about, though not easy.

    How does one begin to name what one currently does not have language for? In psychotherapy, one begins by speaking into the silence.   

    If you would like to make an appointment, I offer a free 20-minute initial consultation where you can ask any questions you might have about therapy.

    You can email me hello@radicalheart.co or message via the contact page or book your preferred slot in my calendar