What therapy looks like
The basis of successful therapy is a trusting, informed rapport between client and clinician. I want you to know as much about what we are doing as I do. I’m initially curious about your childhood history, substance use, sleep patterns and how you spend your time.
Discussing these topics naturally leads to questions about your relationships with family, friends and partners, all the while deepening our therapeutic connection.
Eventually, I aim to make myself redundant; I want clients to be confident they can lead different lives, with skills to manage future disruptions to their Central Nervous Systems.
We agree on a care plan
Much of my thinking, as I listen to you, is noticing patterns in your behaviour and forming hypotheses how your difficulties might present themselves. We’ll discuss these observations as we go, until we both understand the problem we want to resolve and agree on a care plan – usually within two or three sessions.
At its heart, my work focuses on helping each client better regulate chronic “Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn” responses driven by their Central Nervous System (CNS). Some people think of this part of themselves as the “dinosaur brain”, which has alerted humans to potential danger since we evolved into homo sapiens.
The goal is to desensitise the client’s disproportionate responses to traumatic memories or to anxious expectations. Because, if our emotions are mostly settled and we know how to soothe ourselves when triggered, our lives are likely to look and feel a lot calmer.
Eventually, I aim to make myself redundant; I want clients to be confident they can lead different lives, with skills to manage future disruptions to their Central Nervous Systems.