Internal Family Systems
Attachment Informed EMDR
Art Psychotherapy
My approach draws from three safe, powerful therapy approaches: IFS, ai EMDR and Creative psychotherapies. Sometimes I work exclusively with one approach or the other, and we can discuss your preference. However, the three primary therapies I am trained in have been selected to complement one another to provide an evidence based effective approach to treating most mental health difficulties, and our work together may, with your agreement, combine aspects of all.
Internal Family Systems
(IFS)
Internal family systems is a non pathologising evidence based psychotherapy model. It honours the many different parts that make up the unity of each of us (our internal 'family') and holds the belief that at the core of each of us is a healthy, wise and interested Self. IFS views the internal system as functioning much like any external system- with different elements holding different roles that can get into conflict with one another. IFS offers a compassionate and person centred approach to working with many difficulties we may experience, including the effect of trauma, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, 'stuckness' and overwhelm.
​For more about IFS see here
EMDR and ai EMDR
Recommended by NICE (National Institute of Clinical Evidence) as an evidence based trauma therapy, EMDR doesn't take away traumatic memories, but changes our relationship with them - allowing us to shift the negative beliefs that we hold about ourselves in relation to what happened, and enabling us to understand that the past is in the past and that we are now here, in the present, safe from whatever we faced before. Attachment Informed (ai) EMDR is an additional training which expands EMDR's original focus from single incident trauma (eg, a car crash or rape) to the foundational relational traumas that often lay at the heart of mental distress. Both EMDR and ai EMDR use bilateral stimulation which can take the form of eye movements or tapping on your knees, to help change how the memory and beliefs are stored and understood within your mind.
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Art Psychotherapy
Often we have no words for the experiences we have had. Art making is an embodied experience and can be of benefit in therapy in many ways, from bi-lateral drawing in aid of reprocessing traumatic memories, to making visible the parts of us we may not yet be aware of. There is no need to be good at or interested in art for the arts to be a powerful means of communication in therapy. There is also no expectation or necessity to engage of art making of any kind during your sessions. It is always your choice.​