*This blog is taken from my application for accreditation with the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists. The accreditation process is a scheme designed to recognise high standards of knowledge, experience and development as a Therapist.
I hope this gives you an opportunity to see in more depth the concepts I use whilst working with clients. Some of the therapy terms might be unfamiliar, so if you have any questions feel free to email me.
I am an Integrative Therapist who works with individual adults in private practice. I work from a core foundation of client centred, relational humanism, and assimilate theories and exercises from Poly Vagal Therapy and Transactional Analysis. I draw from a range of more recent publications, such as the Power Threat Meaning Framework, as well as my own personal experiences, to tailor therapy to meet the client’s objectives.
In practice this looks like building a safe relational container and a working alliance, to promote a client’s self actualisation. I do this primarily through relational dialogue, as well as sometimes introducing and exploring frameworks to facilitate a client’s awareness expansion, as well as learning practical techniques for change.
Roger’s Humanist core conditions provide the foundation from which I assimilate other theories. I believe that given the right conditions, humans naturally have a tendency towards growth and flourishing. As a therapist I am attempting to walk in their shoes, and deeply understand their perspectives through listening deeply, reflections, and demonstrating and communicating my genuineness and empathy as a fellow human being.
I use PolyVagal theory to consider the psycho-biological experiences of safety and emotional regulation, and the sometimes lasting effects of traumatic experiences and adversity. In order for change to occur, clients should feel physically and psychologically safe. Learning to establish and maintain a sense of safety within a relationship can itself be challenging and therapeutic when there has been a history of trauma, adversity and neglect. In practice this means psycho-education about the Polyvagal ladder, and regular check-in’s around the client’s current state in relation to the content of our conversations. I also apply Stan Tatkin’s psycho-biological model to facilitate understanding of a client’s personal relationship dynamics and challenges.
I also use the Transactional Analysis model of structural and functional ego states to understand the multifaceted nature of personality, and dynamics that occur within the therapeutic relationship. I recruit the concepts of drivers, transference, stroke economy, escape hatches, drama triangle, and introjects to facilitate a client’s actualisation.
The Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) informs how I understand distress. I believe that a person’s environmental factors and life experiences play a significant role in how they generate meaning and understanding about themselves and their world. From these experiences, I view their adaptive behaviour as responses to threats, both in the here and now, and from their personal histories. I view our biology as the lense with which we are perceiving and interfacing with the world. This means when I am working with clients, I pay particular attention to not reinforce a client’s narratives that their problems are just internal, but use socratic dialogue to raise the client’s awareness of how external power structures are significant factors contributing to a client’s distress.
I have a blended practice working face to face, online video calls, and over the phone. I use Polyvagal theory and the PTMF to reflect upon the impact of context on the relationship, as well as concepts such the online dis-inhibition effect. In practice this means collaborating with clients on contextual factors that modulate their sense of safety, for example with lighting, blurred/unblurred backgrounds and the use of headphones.
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