A Relational Psychotherapy
My attachment-based therapeutic approach is based on the idea that the quality of our early relationships sets the stage for who become as adults. Nurture and security promote autonomy and intimacy, trust and resilience and allow us to navigate through life challenges to the best of our capacities.
Conversely, a lack of secure attachment and experience of loss can lead to difficulties in negotiating stressful life circumstances, regulating our emotions and forming sustained and stable relationships. It can also create distressing and unwanted repetitive patterns in our life.
Attachment-based research has shown that positive attachment experiences are related to feelings of safety and contentment throughout life. In contrast, hurtful or traumatic experiences, whether they are isolated or chronic, can have a negative impact on our thoughts, emotions and our body.
Psychotherapy provides the opportunity to experience a relationship of secure attachment as well as enhancing psychological and physical wellbeing and the capacity to form and maintain fulfilling relationships.
The way I practise attachment-based psychotherapy has a key psychoanalytic component, that is exploring unconscious thoughts and motivations. A relational psychoanalytic approach is central to gaining insight on our repeated patterns of behaviour, which sometimes do not serve our personal growth and interpersonal relationships. Psychoanalytic thinking enhances our ability to freely self-reflect, making the unconscious conscious
In addition to utilising the attachment model, my trauma-informed approach draws significant influence from Jungian depth psychology, as well as a range of body-based therapeutic modalities, in particular the advanced mind-body psychotherapy developed by Albert Pesso and Diane Boyden-Pesso: Pesso-Boyden System Psychotherapy (PBSP) as well as the body-oriented therapy Somatic Experiencing (SE) developed by Dr. Peter Levine.
These two body-based models have profoundly shaped my practice as they offer valuable frameworks for understanding and addressing the complexities of trauma.
