“Courage is vulnerability. Vulnerability is courage.
Like shadow and light, neither can exist without the other…”
Wai Lan Yuen
Individual Therapy
Making the decision to undertake psychotherapy is a courageous step. But equally it is an opportunity to follow an enchanting and inspiring path of self-discovery to a place that fosters curiosity, imagination, creativity, meaning and possibility. I see my role as one of companion; walking alongside you as you follow your path and “being with you” and holding space as you wander and explore. Through deep presence and companioning, I invite you to draw on various experiential and creative tools that enable you to experience and inquire and, in turn, create meaning and understanding from your experience. And by ‘experience’ I refer to both the ‘in the moment’ experience of the therapy process as well as the experiences you bring from outside the therapy space that have led you to recognise the need for support and change. When we are able to construct a sense of meaning and understanding, especially from experiences and events that feel inexplicable and incomprehensible, we can then pave a new path towards integration, learning new ways of being, empowerment, hope and healing.
“…to be receptive as a therapist, is to provide a clearing;
the light of human presence that enables the person suffering to find a path,
to wander through the entanglements without being defeated or denied as self…”
Clark Moustakas
From my own experience of psychotherapy, I know that traditional talk therapy has its limitations. It tends to keep one’s awareness and process to what is already accessible and known to consciousness. In other words, it restricts us to our cognitive and mental awareness and ways of interpreting, knowing and understanding our experiences that occupy the realm of mental concepts and conceptualisation, thinking and literal processing. Art, nature and other creative therapies on the other hand, allow one to interpret, understand and experience the world around them by drawing on all of the senses and ways of knowing. It suggests that our entire bodies, not just our minds, are vital in enabling us to tap into, and access the deeper sub-conscious, unconscious and unknown content that make up our experiences, allowing us to become more fully aware and better able make sense of these experiences.