I seek to work in ways appropriate to the needs of each
particular person at each moment, rather than following a
rigid methodology.
A compulsion is the act of wrapping ourselves around an activity, a
substance or a person, to survive, to tolerate and numb our experience
of the moment. Love is a state of connectedness, one that includes
vulnerability, surrender, self-valuing, steadiness and a willingness
to face, rather than run from, the worst of ourselves. Compulsion is
a state of isolation, one that includes self-absorption, invulnerability,
low self-esteem, unpredictability and fear that, if we faced our pain,
it would destroy us... Love and compulsion cannot co-exist.
- Geneen Roth
I am eclectic and work with every tool
to develop and maintain contact and connection with the client.
I draw inspiration from humanistic and existential psychotherapy,
humanistic family therapy and from Stanley Keleman's work in the field
of formative psychology.
Humanistic psychotherapy has a vision of the human being as innately
striving towards health. It is a respectful style of psychotherapy,
in which the therapist sees himself or herself as the client's equal
and interacts with them as one human to another. The client's individual
experience in the here and now is seen as a basis for their self-knowing,
so the therapist intervenes with a direct focus on what is actually
happening now. The person who comes to see the therapist is fundamentally
a unique and whole adult, not a condition requiring a cure or a neurosis
The body feels real hunger, real thirst, real joy in
the sun or the snow, real pleasure in the smell of
roses or the look of a lilac bush; real anger, real sorrow,
real tenderness, real warmth, real passion, real hate, real grief.
All emotions belong to the body and are recognised by the mind.
- D.H. Lawrence
requiring interpretation. The trouble with a label is that it's the label
that gets the attention.
Existential psychotherapy also aims at enhancing self-knowledge in individuals.
It recognizes their capacity to give shape and value to their lives.
It asks
questions like: "What risk do I really take in being who I am?" It affirms that
we have the choice, to live or be lived. It emphasizes individual responsibility.
Humanistic family therapy is open, flexible and adult
in discussing what really is
and what real relationships are actually like.
Formative psychology supports a person to be the author of their life.
It looks at how we influence and regulate ourselves, and how we experience our living
process. It asks questions like: "What is growing?" and "What is trying to take
shape?". This is very different from traditional psychology's historical or causative
If you're patient and wait for the clouds to disperse, you will see the brightness of the moon.
- (Chinese saying)
focus which is so logically attractive, especially as we have been conditioned to
think in terms of cause and effect, and yet can leave us helpless and passive
victims of our past. Formative psychology doesn't deny the gift of our inheritance
but says that
we can create a second body within it, another layer, a second adult reality.
I am very interested in synthesizing formative psychology with the (F.M.)
Alexander Technique,
because both in their different ways offer us effective
practices for forming gradual, incremental changes in our body-mind unity.
Coming to therapy is a responsible act. It means taking charge of our lives. We all want to function better,
but the pressures of the modern world over-stress us. They lure us away from a connection to ourselves, our families,
communities and natural environment. The consequence is anxiety and depression in their
many forms. Change comes when we meet new challenges and, in my view a therapist's job is
not to impose their own agenda, to judge, label or diagnose, but to challenge the person,
from a place of goodwill and respect, to make their own changes towards a richer, more satisfying life.
We change and transform constantly from the instant of conception until we die.
The task for us is to learn how to influence who we are in our constant changing.
We do this by paying close attention to ourselves, by handling ourselves lovingly
and receptively, and deciding to live with self-acceptance and compassion.
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