Attachment-Based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Supervision in Walthamstow
Attachment-based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Welcome to my website. Life can be tough sometimes. We may have feelings we struggle to cope with or understand or we might have a decision or life change we struggle to navigate. In any instance therapy and counselling might be helpful. There may be a specific situation, relationship dynamic or feeling past or present you wish to explore or make sense of, particularly if this is creating unease or struggle in your life right now.
Attachment-Based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
I am a UKCP-registered attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist and counsellor. I have twenty years experience working with adults in individual one-to-one therapy both in person and online. Here are some of the ways I can help you:
Open ended Psychotherapy and Counselling
Open ended, or longer term, therapy offers an opportunity for you to gradually build a therapeutic alliance and explore your struggles more deeply over time. This can be a very enriching and fulfilling experience aimed at precipitating long-lasting change.
Time Limited Psychotherapy and Counselling
If resources do not allow for an open-ended approach, time limited therapy may be for you. We agree a fixed number of sessions, usually anything between 6 sessions and 20 sessions and focus on a particular issue at hand. You may wish to agree up front what particular issue you wish to focus on and we take a structured approach to tackling this issue.
Supervision
I offer one-to-one supervision for those psychotherapists and counsellors interested in an attachment-based framework. If you are a psychotherapist or counsellor and are interested in an attachment framework please do not hesitate to drop me a line.
The Initial Consultation
Depending on my availability, the next step is for us to talk on the phone when we will discuss your needs, expectations and interests from therapy in more detail. We will then arrange two initial consultations at my practice. This will consist of two 50-minute meetings a week apart with the first one telling me about your issues and expectations, circumstances and personal history and for me to tell you how I work. The purpose of the second meeting is to give you the opportunity to think about our potential work together, share how you felt being in the room with me and ask any questions that may have arisen out of the initial encounter.
If you are interested in any of these approaches and wish to find out more, you can visit the 'About Psychotherapy', 'About Nicky' and 'What to Expect' pages or drop me an email.
Wisdom from the Consulting Room.
Here is a wee place I will share a few thoughts and musings along various themes from my time spent with all those couragerous souls I meet everyday in my consulting room. I hope you too may find some of these thoughts and reflections helpful and if you wish to think about these ideas further please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Questions We Might Ask Ourselves When We Seek Therapy
As an attachment based therapist, I see every day the courage people have in stepping forward and talking about some of the most painful and vulnerable struggles in their lives. Being heard, understood and truly seen are some of the most important requisites for therapeutic growth but what does this really mean to you? What would someone have to do or say to help you feel truly understood and met in order that you could feel therapy is working? In addition to important practical considerations such as accreditations, training, credentials, years of experience, age, gender, modality etc. here are a few questions you might wish to ask yourself whilst seeking a new therapist.
Do you have a specific issue you wish to address or is it a more general feeling of malaise? Would you prefer the therapy be very structured and goal-orientated in its format with exercises to follow or would it be very open and exploratory? Would you wish 'homework' in between sessions? Would you prefer moments of silence to digest what is being explored or would you prefer a more dynamic conversational to-and-fro? Is warmth and kindness most important to you or might you feel that to be a little too ‘cosy’, preferring a more challenging or direct approach? Would you want the therapist to be quite challenging albeit with kindness and empathy or would you want a gentler holding space to share your feelings and have them simply heard and understood? Would you want the room to be in clinical setting or in the therapist’s home? Or would you prefer the therapy to be from your own home either on the telephone or on Zoom?
Therapists can vary greatly in their style and approach and so these are important questions to think about when looking for a potential therapist. When you make an initial enquiry you can ask them about their approach and assess whether it fits the type of therapeutic relationship you are looking for. Now of course we cannot always know what it is we are looking for and we have to sometimes just give as few sessions a go to see how we feel. Does the initial encounter feel ‘right’ and do I feel comfortable sharing what it is I need to share with this person? I offer two initial no obligation meetings in order to allow you to intuit and assess what kind of therapy you might need and want.
If you are interested in counselling and psychotherapy contact me on 0208 509 2849.