Approach

Starting therapy can feel daunting. Sharing private thoughts and feelings, especially if you have been judged or invalidated in your experience can feel scary and challenging. My aim in therapy is for us build up to sharing and developing an understanding of the authentic you, to provide a validating space for you to just ‘be’, to share what you need to share, in your own time and space.

A lot of my work tends to be a mix of psychoeducation and psychotherapy. There is a tremendous amount of pathologised, negative, false, and stereotypical information about neurodivergence, which can add to clients’ trauma and view of themselves. Part of my work is usually around understanding and shaking off that shame dust by taking a holistic physiological, psychological, and relational approach. I work in a trauma-informed, authentically validating humanistic and relational way with my clients. This may also include somatic or creative work depending on communication and processing styles.

My approach steers clear of the behavioural approaches such as CBT. We can certainly work out support techniques which can help in the moment, but these will be unique to you, your way of being, your neurotype, and your nervous system, rather than a one-size-fits-all set script. Healing from complex trauma often needs a lot more than sticking plasters, a useful sticking plasters are at points! They won’t necessarily help long-term. That complex wound will still be there, underneath those sticking plasters. It can not heal unless we know the cause.

I believe in understanding roots. In looking deeper at the wounds, which is nearly always complex layered trauma for neurodivergent folk. My approach is neurodivergent trauma-informed, and holistic. This means figuring out how our mind and bodies have responded, held onto, and are being retriggered. Then we can authentically, with clarity, care, and connection, work out how to help, support, and heal longer term, not just in the moment.