Holistic Counselling & Somatic Therapies
"The feeling of safety is the treatment"
Dr Stephen Porges
I centre my holistic practice in empathetic person-centred counselling interwoven with body-oriented somatic therapies including mindfulness, breath work, somatic movement and therapeutic yoga.
It's a basket-full of possibilities, positively overflowing with rich, compassionate, strengths based practices that I can hone to suit you and where you find yourself.​
What I can bring to support you in your process, is the warmth of intuitive therapeutic presence that I have honed for the past 25 years in being of service to hundreds of birthing women and gender diverse folk.
Bearing witness to the raw and magnificent vulnerability of humanity time and time again, has opened me to the healing that can be experienced when one is held in another's unconditional positive regard.
My practice is centred in awareness of the way traumatic experiences shape the nervous system. That trauma is felt and carried in the body, it's not who we are - it's what we have and have not experienced. Trauma informed practice offers a way to grow and integrate experiences through the guided therapeutic exploration of safety, choice and effective action, collaboration and trust.
It is fundamentally holistic, empowering, strengths-focused, collaborative and reflective; promoting physical, emotional, spiritual and cultural safety.
Grounded in strengths based, person-centred counselling; the emphasis is on the development of empathy, safety and connection; supported by evidence based, trauma informed and culturally sensitive counselling and psychotherapeutic interventions.
I can offer Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) . This evidenced-based approach is about being open to what bothers us and actively choosing a course of action to create a bridge between acceptance and commitment.
My practice is warmly inclusive, compassionate and boundless respectful of the glorious diversity of humanity. I have decades of grounded experience in working ethically with clients of diverse cultural backgrounds. It's an honour to walk alongside clients of diverse age, religion, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation.
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I have been teaching Mindfulness and Breathwork for twenty years.
Mindfulness practices can help with managing physical pain; working with difficult emotions; cultivating positive emotions; working with difficult thoughts and mindful interactions. Mindfulness practices often incorporate guided imagery to help with the development of focus.
Exploring breathwork techniques with or without mindfulness practice are a proven way to help steady emotions.
Somatic practices bring you into relationship with your own body. They lead you towards embodiment, towards knowing and being with what the body knows of itself. Somatic practices are about getting to know yourself more intimately; entering a safe and informed practice that responds to ever-changing needs as dynamic organisms; reclaiming the ability to make your own choices about your body.
When we engage with our practice somatically to listen and to feel to our unique way of being; we practice personal agency, becoming empowered to know that we have choice and that we each know our experience and our body better than anyone else.
I have been teaching trauma-informed therapeutic yoga for twenty years. It is an approach that is profoundly nourishes your nervous system. Therapeutic yoga is less about making astonishing shapes and more about experiencing the intimate integration of mindful breathing practices with mindful body awareness and nurturing movement for increased vagal tone, stress reduction, and trauma recovery.
Benefits of Trauma-informed therapeutic yoga transcend the mat into everyday life and can include a clearer sense of connectedness to self and others; sense of agency and bodily autonomy; self-compassion; increased mind-body awareness; improved emotional stability; capacity to contain unhelpful thought patterns and improved physical health.
Wellbeing is a state of feeling happy and healthy; being productive and being able to perform at our best. Holistic wellbeing considers you as a whole person - your emotional resilience; physical wellbeing; your relationships; work-life balance; sense of identity and purpose.
When was the last time you had the opportunity to pause and reflect on the wholeness of your wellbeing?
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