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You’ve likely found your way here because your emotional wellbeing is not as you wished it would be. Perhaps it’s a general dissatisfaction or restlessness, maybe you experience high levels of anxiety, have a history of depression, lack confidence and self-esteem, or struggle with relationships.

Whatever your problems and symptoms it is likely that they are the consequence of the ways that you have learned to manage and avoid painful or frightening inner experiences.

Whilst the avoidance of inner experiences such as thoughts, memories and sensations can cause us difficulties it is the repeated avoidance of emotions that has the most detrimental impact on our wellbeing.

Instead of being felt as intended certain emotions are perceived as threatening and subsequently avoided, a process which can occur both in and outside of awareness.

More often than not the emotional avoidance strategies we learn have consequences, leading to the development of unhelpful beliefs, behaviours and self defeating relational patterns.  Over time the repeated avoidance and thwarting of emotional experience can lead to the debilitating symptoms that we are more familiar with. These include, but are not limited to anxiety, panic attacks, depression, worry and self criticism as well as a host of psychophysiological conditions, from muscle tension to chronic headaches, Fibromyalgia and IBS.

As our emotions contribute to our sense of self through communicating what is important to us we need access to them to guide us through life. When this ability is hindered we can struggle with our sense of who we are, with what we want and don’t want, leading to uncertainty, a loss of direction and dissatisfaction with life.

My Approach: With your consent my intent is to work together with you to help you lead a richer and more personally meaningful life.  I will also support you in learning more effective ways to manage the inevitable stress and pain that life brings.

How we achieve your desired outcome depends on what this would look like to you and what is standing in the way of you achieving this. This would likely involve me helping you to identify and let of go of the avoidance strategies that you have learned. As you become more comfortable with letting go of these strategies you will gain greater access to your inner experience, leading to the alleviation of symptoms, the development of a more coherent sense of self, and the removal of internal barriers to leading the life that you want.

My way of working can be considered integrative in that I will draw from a range of strongly evidenced and leading edge psychological approaches such as ACT & ISTDP to help you address your difficulties and achieve the changes that you seek.