Reflective Blog

As couples counselling is becoming more popular I wonder if couples know what to expect? From my experience, people come both hopeful and anxious, having watched ‘Couples Therapy ’, which is a stylised albeit excellent version, but it’s still the highlights and it’s impossible to know the longer-term trajectory of these relationships and it's not a full picture of the therapy. Couples Counselling can be great when you have lost your way and you don’t know how to talk to each

I work a lot with sexual issues in my practice, both with individuals and with couples. The one thing that repeatedly enters the room is people's preconceptions on how to have a healthy and regular sex life, especially when one seems less interested in it than the other. The expectation that first comes desire, then comes arousal, and sex follows from this is an illusion; this only happens in the early-dopamine-filled days of a relationship. In long-term happy and sustainable

The way we stand, we sit and we walk, may be unconscious to us but holds our entire history of relationships and experiences. Maybe we hold ourselves upright, chest open, shoulders relaxed, steady footing, long spine, open face, soft jaw, denoting confidence, open-ness and hope. Maybe our shoulders are curling in, our legs and our walk are heavy, our pelvis tight, our chin pointing downwards, denoting protection, deflation, caution. We can ask ourselves the question, what doe

Managing conflict in intimate relationships Conflict is a prime reason bringing couples to therapy, the way that conflict is managed and contained or not within the couple relationship; conflict in our lives has a growthful and a destructive potential. When it is contained and worked through satisfactorily, it can lead to growth; when the defence and resistance pull people apart, it is destructive. In our couple relationships we bring the model of relationship that we uncons

Embodiment has become a bit of cliche, like 'trauma-informed care' and 'mindfulness'. As I am writing a workshop on embodiment, I am getting to reflect on embodiment and what it really means on the ground, whilst also being informed by my favorite voices, Peter Levine, Tara Brach, John Kabat-Zinn and others, where I go to for solace and CPD 2-in-1, usually on my drives to work. A bit like mindfulness, hardly anyone goes through their day being constantly mindful; Sometimes w

Being a humble and reflexive practitioner #Ethics are to my mind a misunderstood topic in therapy training, a bit like research. I must say for me it is a topic that always sparked my creativity. Maybe this is partly my Greek heritage and transgenerational history, we are all descendants of Plato and Aristotle after all. I am thinking of the 'therapeutic frame' in therapy as that which keeps clients safe and the therapy a place for exploration of deepest darkest thoughts feel

We need to wobble to know we can stand back up. It's not that we have a choice, but lack of wobbling is rigidity, we need to allow ourselves to be impacted and shaken by unpredictability, loss, things not going to plan, life's uncertainty. Maya Angelou says: 'You may not control all the things that happen to you but you can decide not to be reduced by them’. How we respond to the unpredictability is how we find resilience. Resilience is a process, you lose it and find it, it

I taught my last workshop of the year last weekend and it was a profoundly wholesome experience. At the end of 3 intense days I glanced down at the room which provided our container and our liminal space for learning and experiencing and saw 25-bodies splayed across every corner, on the floor the sofas and the chairs in the dark with meditative music drawing their mandalas and I felt truly blessed and in awe. I brought together many parts of myself in this workshop: my analyt

On my way to my supervision and therapy sessions today, a very rainy and windy apocalyptic day in the north of England, I randomly came across a Ted-talk about the power of choice by the wise Carolyn Myss. I usually listen to what the universe sends trusting that it is a case of synchronicity and that the universe sends us what we need at each moment and i receive it with open-mind and curiosity. It was indeed what I needed. Carolyn made me think about how difficult it is in

This is an area I am particularly interested in in my work with both men and women: the crisis that comes with the second part of life which is like a rebirth, an opportunity to reinvent oneself but also a highly anxiety-evoking time when we become acutely aware of the passing of time and the existence of the end. This time can be anytime, it can be in the 30s and it can be in the 70s and anything in between, it can be triggered by life events, losses, changes, for women meno