Listening to the body.
For more than 14 years, I have explored a wide range of contemplative traditions, somatic practices, and psychotherapeutic approaches in an ongoing search to better understand the relationship between the body, mind, and healing.
Over that time, I immersed myself in traditions and approaches including Zen, Qi Gong, Yoga, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Experiencing, psychodynamic therapy, Jungian psychology, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and contemporary researchers and clinicians working across psychology, spirituality, and human development.
Today, these experiences simply inform the way I work as a counsellor. They are influences on my approach, not a claim of certification in every modality.
An approach within counselling.
Somatic arts can be woven into a counselling session, or we can agree to focus the session primarily on bodily awareness. There is no need to adopt a spiritual belief or philosophy.
I draw on evidence-informed somatic practices where appropriate to help people become more aware of their bodily experience, recognise patterns of tension and protection, and develop a more compassionate relationship with themselves.
For some people this may involve noticing posture, breathing, grounding, movement, or bodily sensation. For others, it may simply involve slowing down enough to listen to what their body has been communicating all along.
What your session includes.
In a 60-minute session we begin with a check-in, choose an accessible focus together, and allow time to explore and reflect. Practices are invitations: you can adapt, pause or decline any exercise. Gentle movement, seated awareness and quiet reflection can all be part of the work.
My role is not to teach a spiritual path or prescribe a particular way of seeing the world. It is to help clients reconnect with their own experience, develop greater self-awareness, and discover what supports healing and meaningful change in their own lives.