Learning to live with #ADHD: where does #psychotherapy fit in?
Are you living with #ADHD? Here's a link to an article about how psychotherapy may be able to help: Learning to live with ADHD - where...
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07956 900 634
Trauma recovery for Mind & Body
ALL ABOUT THERAPY
Learn about my methods and practice
If you have been traumatised by sexual abuse, an abusive relationship, an assault or rape. If you had difficulties during pregnancy or giving birth. If you have lost someone to the COVID 19 virus or are recovering yourself: Sometimes the trauma just won't let you go. No matter what you do, you keep feeling the same pain and fear, seeing the same images, feeling the same physical sensations as on the day it happened.
Trauma is carried in the body, in pain, stiffness, tension, weakness, discomfort, a racing heart, breathlessness, movement trapped in the muscles: the legacies of the Fight Flight or Freeze mechanism (the body's way of responding to danger). In trauma, the brain's memory processing mechanism can be overwhelmed by the volume of sensation linked to the traumatic incident concerned. Memory of the event gets stuck in the brain's alarm system, the Amygdala, rather than being stored away in the library, the hippocampus. The Amygdala has no sense of time or place, so if it is reminded of the original trauma, it thinks its happening again, so sends out the same stress hormones to trigger the Fight, Flight or Freeze mechanism: its like you relive the moment, feeling the same emotional and physical sensations, again and again.
To help you, I use EMDR (see below), to process the memory so it can be stored in the Library of the mind and remembered, but not relived and exercise and movement to help relieve the physical legacies of trauma - pain, tension, restlessness, agitation.
Trauma can also affect the way we eat and how we feel about our bodies, especially if it is related to sexual abuse. We can eat sometimes to protect or comfort ourselves, to feel safe. Following a standard diet or fitness programme can cause anxiety if the deeper reasons for weight gain and eating are not understood. My approach will help you get fit and relieve underlying emotional issues.
Anxiety, depression and trauma can exacerbate lower back pain: you can lose confidence and avoid movement, but this only makes the pain worse: a programme which addresses your emotional issues and helps you build your strength and flexibility is a powerful way to relieve pain and recover.
Exercise boosts your mood, relieves anxiety and can return you to a state of balance after a traumatic memory has been triggered.
MY STORY
I have learnt from my over twenty years of practice as a therapist that people have an incredible capacity to recover from appalling experiences and that therapy can play a powerful role in aiding recovery.
I am also a Level 3 Personal Trainer and Nutrition & Weight Management Advisor and hold an additional qualification in exercise for mental health and recovery from chronic lower back pain. I use the power of outdoor exercise to engage the body's natural healing mechanisms to aid recovery from trauma, depression and anxiety. I lead fitness sessions outdoors to reengage with the healing power of nature.
It is my passion to help people who have survived a wide range of traumas, who wish to escape from its grip and rebuild their lives. I have a special interest in people who have survived childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape, birth-related trauma, assaults, terrorism, bullying and work-related stress.
I now work privately in East London and Chancery Lane and by Zoom and Telephone. I am a qualified and accredited Psychodynamic Psychotherapist and Psychotherapeutic Counsellor, with an MA in Psychoanalytic Studies. I am also a qualified EMDR Therapist and trained in in Narrative Exposure Therapy and Solution Focused Brief Therapy. I am a Level Four Personal Trainer (Exercise for Lower Back Pain Specialist) and a Pilates Teacher (Please go to my Blog Page for articles about the mind and body and the therapeutic power of exercise.)
EMDR : EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITISATION & REPROCESSING
A Happier, Healthier You
EMDR is an evidence-based therapy developed to help people process troubling traumatic memories held in the non-verbal areas of the brain and in the body. It uses eye movements and other forms of bilateral stimulation to reconnect areas of the brain which hold the trauma with parts which hold the capacity to heal. The brain is stimulated to begin healing itself, the start of recovery. EMDR can also help with depression, eating disorders, future anxieties, chronic pain and phobias.
PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY
Here For You
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (PDP) is about working together to build trust and safety so that we can explore the origins of difficulties you may be having in your life. We will look at how memories, feelings, relationships and patterns from your early life and childhood are impacting on the way you feel now and how you on with the people in your life. PDP helps bring into awareness, unconscious memories, patterns, relationships and feelings we may not be aware of but which affect us every day as we interact with those around us and influence how we feel and behave. PDP helps repair the damage of the past to help you live freely in the present.
#Pilates for #ChronicLowerBackPain
Pilates & Visualisation to relieve chronic lower back pain.
Chronic Lower Back Pain has physical and psychological roots, with stress, anxiety and trauma all making the pain worse. I run a Zoom class on Mondays at 7pm combining Pilates with visualisation / relaxation and mindfulness to address both the physical and emotional elements of back pain, an approach based on latest research showing Pilates to be one of the most effective forms of exercise for this condition. NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) recommends exercise plus therapy to treat lower back pain and my classes combine both. £12 per session - message me for further details. Individual consultations also offered at £90 per session.
THERAPEUTIC FITNESS
Move Your Body, Heal Your Mind
Weekly PT sessions, with a home fitness programme, using cardio, strength, core and flexibility fitness to raise your mood, clear worrying thoughts, process emotion trapped in the body, improve your confidence and help you relax. Helping your explore how your body carries emotion and painful experience and how movement can help relieve emotion which cannot be talked about. This will help you feel a lot better and get you fit!
CHRONIC LOWER BACK PAIN RELIEF
Treatment for the physical & psychological aspects of lower back pain.
A programme consisting of weekly EMDR sessions to process the underlying emotional issues which exacerbate chronic lower back pain and the pain itself and visualisation to target areas of the brain sending out pain signals. Also a fitness programme to build strength and flexibility of back muscles and general fitness; work on posture & pelvic alignment; learning good lifting technique; support to change from a sedentary to a healthy, active lifestyle, to prevent further pain. Prices on request .
BOXERCISE: BOXING FOR FITNESS
Get fit and release trapped emotion
Boxercise is a boxing-based fitness system which is fantastic for body and mind: it combines aerobic exercise with the complex movements of boxing (punching onto pads and footwork). It will lift your mood, reduce your stress and can even help with trauma: trauma can leave you with troubling emotions held deep in the body, which words cannot reach but boxing can release. People are often left with a feeling of trapped movement after an assault or form of abuse: a feeling of wanting to protect yourself but of being prevented from doing so as you were trapped due to your circumstances or because your brain chose the freeze response, rather than fight or flight: the impulse to fight or run can stay with you for years, repeatedly triggered when you feel threatened. Boxercise can be a powerful way to release the tension (especially when we sprint as well!). I am a qualified #Boxercise Instructor.
Move the Body, Heal the Mind
NEW CLIENTS ALWAYS WELCOME
FLEXIBLE TIMES AVAILABLE
Typical practice hours:
Monday: 10 am to 2
Tuesday: Early morning, daytime, evening
Wednesday: 12 - 2pm
Thursday: Early morning, daytime, evening
Friday: Early morning, daytime, early evening.
Weekends: Closed.
CONTACT ME
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