Hardship is a fact of life. Life-changing experiences and traumatising events, whether sudden, such as surviving an accident or assault, or long-term, such as reacting to the world from the framework we learned as a child, are especially difficult to make sense of. Some of our resulting feelings and behaviour may become self-defeating. However, how we react to hardships is the one part of our life that we can control.
In therapy we can explore together how to address issues practically or allow space to explore the emotional side and body expression of our experiences, creating a clear path for personal goal setting and building the foundation for a more content daily life. As one becomes more mindful of own habitual reactions, life experience will change, allowing the present moment to be felt, enjoyed and mastered.
Pluralistic, Integrative and collaborative
My work is always collaborative and aims to be brief rather than long-term. The duration of therapy is much determined by what a person comes to address. That may mean 6-12 sessions or it can mean long-term internal work. Therapy is always a personal journey. The neuropsychological frameworks that form us may be the same, yet are formed through different experiences and expressed through different personalities, survival strategies and internal solutions. Our differences call for different ways to inquire within for self-knowledge and self-acceptance. Therefore I offer different approaches to therapy, even though the guiding principles in all my therapeutic interventions are openness, seeking collaboration and the involvement of all three realms, thoughts, felt sense and body sensation.
My work draws heavily from the teachings of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, which is a body-focused mindful talking therapy. This includes working on the different aspects within our internal community called 'Self', which each one of us experiences as facets of our 'Selves'. Internal Family Therapy is one of the approaches that has become known in recent years to understand how we are, in fact, multifaceted.
Another mindset I draw from is philosophy-based Existential Psychotherapy. This framework is a more cognitive approach and aims to explore the perspective we have toward our present life. Freedom and responsibility in our life, accepting anxiety as part of life, the reality of our past that cannot be changed, our future that is unknown and the reality of our relationship to ourselves and to others, is the focus in this form of therapy. Realising the freedom of the present moment can lead to the wish to live more authentically. The aim of this form of therapy is to explore what that may mean.
Exploring what we learned early on in our life journey and the underlying family roots through generations may be part of the exploration of our work. This systemic angle to psychotherapy explores the generational impact and helps to understand more about how our internal world has shaped our life now and how it can help identify landmarks to the definition and felt sense of Self.
Trauma Work
I draw a lot of my work from the Trauma-informed Psychotherapy developed by a wealth of devoted therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists such as Ellert Nijenhuis, Bessel van der Kolk, Janina Fisher, Pat Ogden, Kathy Steele, Ono van der Hart, Dan Siegel and Peter A. Levine (list not exhaustive) on the basis of findings of Neuroscience and Neuropsychology, based on the work of e.g. Alan Schore, Jaak Panksepp, and Steven Porges. In addition to Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, I offer Deep Brain Reorienting, developed by the Scottish psychiatrist and Trauma specialist Dr Frank Corrigan, to specifically address the effects that traumatic events can have.
