General Description:
“I work in a combination
of Humanistic, Transpersonal, and Body-Oriented
Psychotherapy modes, with adults, adolescents, and occasionally
children and families. Whilst very familiar with traditional
clinical work, I am also interested in and dedicated to
complementary medicine and holistic approaches, especially involving
personal empowerment. Over the years, I have also had quite
extensive experience in a number of different settings:-
with adolescent girls in a secure residential hostel in
Greenwich; in a psychiatric half-way house residential
setting in Brent; in one of the first "Care in the Community" projects,
as a Mental Health Day Centre worker, also in Brent; as the
resident psychotherapist at the Findhorn Foundation, an
educational & spiritual community in north-east Scotland;
in Morayshire, as a director of a charitable company providing
day services for long-term psychiatric patients and people
with ongoing mental health issues; and, more recently, in the NHS in and
around Edinburgh offering psychotherapy & counseling
to primary care referrals in clinics, in doctors surgeries and in departments of Clinical Psychology.
Whilst I was originally trained and am accredited
as a humanistic and body-oriented psychotherapist, I have been working fairly
eclectically and using many concepts and techniques from the field of brief psychotherapy,
family systems, cognitive behavioural therapy, as well as some concepts from
object relations theory and from psychodynamic or transpersonal psychotherapy;
really whatever seems appropriate to the person and conditions.
I have been working with people in (fairly extreme)
emotional and psychological crisis states. So, accurate diagnosis, evidence-based
techniques, measurement indexes, examination of dysfunctional thought processes,
and the setting of achievable goals are fairly critical, as well as utilizing
a large range of methods for reducing stress levels and anxieties; both self-induced,
social and environmental; keeping proper records; making formulations, and being
a solid & informed presence for the person in crisis and the people around
them.
I have supervised other staff members and practitioners
and been in fairly consistent and appropriate therapy and supervision myself.
I have taught courses to psychotherapists in training and to other staff members.
I have worked quite extensively in the social work
and community mental health field and with a number of different client groups:
parents & children; adolescent girls; psycho-geriatrics and dementia; self-harming & suicidal
clients; people in psychotic episodes & people with severe & borderline
personality disorders; people being re-habilitated out of long-stay psychiatric
hospital; people with chronic mental health issues (ex-psychiatric patients),
learning difficulties; alcoholics and drug addicts trying to stay in the community;
as well as people with chronic illnesses, marital disorders, abandonment, abuse
issues, criminal convictions & imprisonment, major life transitions, break-downs,
sectioning and psychotic episodes, severe debt, chronic illnesses, epileptic fits, dissociated states, and various types of spiritual crises.
These experiences have also involved working with Social Services, psychiatrists, medical doctors, the Police, courts, community mental health teams, employers, foreign tour guides, enthusiastic 'helpers'; as well as with the patients' families and friends, and, on odd occasions, in some (very) strange settings! ” |
