W.S. Merwin
See how the past is not finished / here in the present / it is awake the whole time
Our lives are woven from our experiences. Without our realising, we weave together different threads to create patterns of meaning for ourselves. Therapy helps us explore this process, becoming aware of our patterns and crafting new possibilities.
About therapy
Being a human being is often harder and weirder than any of us expected. We learn from our experiences and through our relationships, which can also seem harder and weirder than expected. We do not get given a guidebook to life, but have to learn how to live well for ourselves. Therapy can help with this. There might not be a guidebook for navigating the inevitable ups, downs and peculiarities of life, but there is the possibility of a supportive relationship where you can explore whatever challenges you are facing. You might need someone to be alongside you as you face the losses and shifts in identity that come with any significant change, or have experienced sudden traumatic events and need support as you work to make sense of what has happened and how this has changed you. Perhaps you just need a moment to think about yourself in the midst of life.
Any therapy session is an encounter that takes place between two human beings. I may have the clinical training and experience and my clients have their lived experience: we are both experts in the room. Each session, we engage in a collaborative, exploratory process to understand what keeps a client stuck or repeating difficult patterns in relationships. These might have deep roots in past experiences, emerging as strategies that protect us from suffering while allowing us to live a life.
Patterns laid down in early childhood relationships can become the architecture of ourselves - how we understand our own thoughts and actions, make sense of past experiences and generate meaning. Therapy is a process where we can begin noticing these patterns and exploring how they influence our relationships with other people or aspects of our life. We use the relationship between us as a crucible for studying patterns of relating and the unconscious dynamics they contain. Cultivating awareness - of patterns and old ideas that repeat or keep us stuck - creates space for us to learn to relate differently to ourselves, others and the inevitable ups and downs of being alive. We cannot get rid of difficulties, but we can cultivate flexibility and adaptability so vital for us to continue developing throughout our lives.
People do not exist in isolation, even if they may feel very lonely at times. We develop in and through relationships with other humans, with ideas, and surrounding groups and systems. Our political leanings and the groups we belong to shape our subjective experience, meaning race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class and spiritual beliefs are inevitably thought about during therapy. I hope to encourage my clients to approach these with curiosity, to gently free themselves of the idea there are some things we don’t talk about in order to discover for themselves what they really think.
Contact me
Have questions about working together or need help with a particular issue? I offer a free 15 minute introductory telephone call. Fill out the contact form and we can arrange a time to think together.
I see clients in-person in London, near London Bridge.
42 Borough High Street
London, SE1 1XW
The closest stations are London Bridge and Borough.
I look forward to hearing from you.