MY APPROACH

I resonate with the idea that life is all about being in relationship — with ourselves, others and the world around us. This is the centrepiece of my approach; to support you to cultivate a loving relationship with yourself.

We collaborate as equals towards creating real, tangible change in your life. I am here to support you to rediscover your innate resources and gifts, celebrating and gently challenging you along the way.

My practice embraces diverse and complementary frameworks and modalities, which I tailor to your needs and wishes. I prioritise creating safety and trust with the understanding that this creates solid ground for inner exploration to flourish.

Alongside IFS and somatic psychotherapy, I may also integrate mindfulness, wisdom traditions, contemplative sciences, non-violent communication, as well as intersectional feminism and attachment theories.

In our work together I offer you skills to support cultivating emotional awareness and balance, which enables you to generate a life of choice. I seek to honour what’s important to you, be it your religious, spiritual or cultural beliefs and practices. If it feels right for you, we weave these influences into sessions.

As a social justice oriented practitioner I believe we are all deeply impacted by the experience of growing up in our shared world of systemic oppression and disconnection. These external experiences greatly shape and influence our internal world. Together we affirm the impact of these complexities.

I view our sessions as alive, dynamic, generative, and interconnected. I emphasise your inherent belonging to life here on this Earth and trust in your capacity for change. Our work builds on everything you already have and offers you a pathway to becoming more of who you truly are - whole.

FRAMEWORKS & MODALITIES

IFS / PARTS WORK

Evidence-based modality
Regain clarity, connection & a sense of wholeness
Release painful, limiting beliefs & burdens
Process trauma
Cultivate love and gentleness toward oneself & others

TRAUMA-SENSITIVE MINDFULNESS

Adapted to you - accessible, meaningful, contextual
Notice habits, patterns, limiting narratives
Cultivate emotional balance
Strengthen body-mind connection

SOMATIC PSYCHOTHERAPY

Practice grounding & creating safety in the body
Regulate your nervous system
Identify & understand where emotion & trauma is stored in the body
Learn the body's language

INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS

IFS holds that there is nothing inherently wrong with people, and that everyone already contains within them everything they need for healing and transformation.

Throughout our lives, we have all had experiences that have resulted in us being wounded. Through these experiences, our internal worlds have come up with ways of surviving – defending the most vulnerable parts of ourselves and ensuring we can carry on.

These protective parts are never ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ – they always have good intentions. Sometimes, though, they can get stuck in their role, protecting us at any cost. We can find ourselves reacting to new situations in old ways that don’t serve our current needs, clouding our perspective and understanding, and keeping us feeling trapped, tangled and conflicted.

In IFS, we move gently to build relationships with those parts, to understand who they are, how they came to be and what they would need to feel safe enough to step into a different way of being. We do not shame or force change upon our parts. Instead, we listen to them, acknowledge and appreciate their efforts, support them to unburden from the extreme roles they’ve assumed over time, and give them the opportunity to use their innate skills in new and helpful ways.

Our goal is to clear the path back to the heart of who you are – your ‘Self’ energy. This is not an individualised concept of ego, but rather the deep sense of knowing, clarity, confidence, connection and wholeness we all hold within us.

IFS is a deeply relational model which emphasises the importance of consent and safety when supporting you through inner change and transformation. It places trust in your system, honouring the clever and creative ways you have navigated adversity, and using everything you already have to find your way home.

What’s in a name?

IFS stands for ‘Internal Family Systems’. It draws on the idea that our inner worlds are complex and relational (a bit like ecosystems) and that they can also mirror the dynamics that play out in families (where issues are likely to arise from the whole rather than a single individual). The founder of IFS, Richard Schwartz, is a family therapist and is deeply informed by systems thinking. He observed that people’s individual worlds somewhat resemble family units. Thus the name, Internal Family Systems.

Graphic by Janet R. Mullen, LCSW

Founder of IFS, Richard Schwartz speaks about parts and voices, the Self, healing and how Internal Family Systems got its name.