Counselling & Psychotherapy
I offer individual therapy to adults (18+), both short term and open-ended. Therapy is a unique process in which we work together to help you feel better and move towards a more enlivened and fulfilled life.
Whilst this process is necessarily led by you, I am not a passive bystander but rather an active participant and will provide both support and challenge in service of your growth. The type of therapy I offer is not a procedure that I perform ‘on’ you but rather a joint effort we undertake together.
This process may involve us examining your thoughts, feelings and physical sensations as well as looking at how previous life experiences have impacted you. We may work with your dream images if they are meaningful to you. Sometimes I offer a structured exercise during a session or suggest that you do a particular piece of work outside of us meeting. We may also spend time sitting in silence together. All of this is offered in service of you gaining new perspectives, increased self-awareness, choosing new behaviours and making better life choices for yourself.
Therapy comes at a cost to you (time, effort and money), requires steadfast commitment and is without a guarantee. It can be painful and confronting at times and may involve coming to terms with some difficult truths. It is my experience and conviction however that a successful course of therapy will lead to more than just short-term relief from suffering but also to a life enlarged: one characterised by a greater sense of freedom, increased resilience, greater self-expression and enjoyment, more purpose and meaning.
THERAPEUTIC APPROACH
My approach is integrative and draws on transpersonal, psychodynamic, humanistic and relational models.
TRANSPERSONAL
Experiences that go beyond the individual self or ‘ego’. I have a core training in psychosynthesis, a transpersonal modality.
PSYCHODYNAMIC
Exploring the unconscious in order to understand how the past effects the present.
HUMANISTIC
A focus on increasing self-awareness, the present moment, personal growth and an inherent desire for fulfilment and self-actualisation.
RELATIONAL
A focus on the therapeutic relationship and using the interpersonal dynamics between therapist and client to improve the clients’ relational patterns.
For those who are looking for a more structured approach I also offer Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a somatic based cognitive modality. You can read more about EFT and Psychosynthesis, a core training of mine, below.
PSYCHOSYNTHESIS
Psychosynthesis is a philosophical and psychological approach to human growth developed by the Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli in the early 20th Century. Originally rooted in Freudian psychoanalysis, psychosynthesis developed into an integrative model that combines principles and techniques from the psychoanalytic, humanistic, transpersonal and relational traditions.
In developing psychosynthesis, Assagioli sought to both address complexes which stem from unresolved childhood experiences as well as to harness our inherent potential for creativity, inspiration and growth. Psychosynthesis therefore works on both the personal dimension of growth – addressing the healing and integration of the personality, as well as the transpersonal dimension – working with inspiration, peak experiences and spirituality. Assagioli saw the personal and transpersonal lines of human development as operating within a larger ongoing process which he called self-realisation; that which calls on us to discover and follow our deepest truths, giving meaning and purpose to our lives.
I chose to study psychosynthesis because it is a holistic approach which incorporates the body, feelings and mind as well as spirituality within its frame. The psychosynthesis model holds that we are all able to access our own internal sources of strength and wisdom. Psychosynthesis doesn’t promote a particular doctrine or set of beliefs regarding spirituality but rather is an inclusive model that welcomes many different perspectives and possibilities.
One of the strengths of the psychosynthesis model is that it includes many therapeutic tools and techniques which brings an experiential element to psychotherapy. These include guided imagery, the creative use of visualisation, free drawing, voice dialogue, working with subpersonalities or internal ‘parts’, meditation, interpersonal and group work.
You can read more about the history and principles of psychosynthesis here.
EFT
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), often described as ‘energetic acupuncture’, is one of the better known therapies in the emerging field of Energy Psychology. EFT alleviates emotional and psychological distress by combining elements of exposure and cognitive therapy with the stimulation of acupressure points.
The EFT protocol is based on the principle that psychological distress is the result of a disruption in the body’s meridian system. By tapping on a series of acupuncture points whilst focusing on the issue or concern you would like to address, the protocol allows the meridian system to clear the disruption, leading to an immediate shift. Often in my experience, this shift is accompanied by increased self-awareness and insight.
Research has shown that EFT ‘tapping’ reduces cortisol levels in the blood [1], helping to reduce physical pain, anxiety and symptoms of depression as well as improve heart rate variability (HRV). It is thought that one of the mechanisms through which EFT works is through inducing a mini-REM state through increasing theta EEG frequencies in the brain, helping it re-organise the way it stores and processes information. EFT has been shown to be particularly effective when working with anxiety and phobias [2] and in reducing the intensity of symptoms related to traumatic experiences such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [3].
EFT is a practice that integrates well with traditional psychotherapy. In my experience the use of EFT alongside talk therapy can help clients move through psychological blockages in a way that talk therapy on its own is less likely to accomplish.
I have found that one of the significant advantages of EFT is that it is easily learnt my clients and can be used independently of the me to provide relief when feeling distressed.
[1] Church, D., Yount, G. and Brooks, A., 2012. The Effect of Emotional Freedom Techniques on Stress Biochemistry. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 200(10), pp.891-896.
[2] Sebastian, B. and Nelms, J., 2017. The Effectiveness of Emotional Freedom Techniques in the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Meta-Analysis. EXPLORE, 13(1), pp.16-25.
[3] Clond, M., 2016. Emotional Freedom Techniques for Anxiety. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 204(5), pp.388-395.
Professional registrations
Contact
+44 (0)7466 393567
mail@tomshuttetherapy.co.uk