Childhood trauma therapy online

I never really believed in therapy.

I just didn’t really know what else to try.

The first time I sat in front of a therapist, she looked like my Grandma. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing (or even what was wrong). I think I lasted two sessions.

At my university counselling centre, I’d bounced from one assigned therapist to the next. I remember the first therapist agreeing I needed help and wanting to refer me to a therapy group.

I was both simultaneously relieved and horrified.

She thought I was bad enough to need help, someone gets it!

She thought I was bad enough to need help?! She must think I’m crazy.

Sure, I didn’t always go to lectures or read the books. I would sleep in and eat crunchy nut cornflakes for lunch. I would drink too much and sit on the cold, concrete steps of the bar we frequented at 2am crying. But this was normal student behaviour, wasn’t it?

Deep down, I knew it was getting worse and not better.

Although I couldn’t put my finger on the problem, I’d known for years that I wasn’t ok. I could recognise something in some people about how bad they felt, even though I didn’t really understand what ‘it’ was. I could see that some people had something that I did not, something that seemed to keep them going.

I wanted to be a translator, not a therapist.

Despite my languages degree, I ended up in the city working for Financial services companies as a means to stay in London after I graduated.

After 7 years, I’d had enough of spreadsheets, database issues, software upgrades and option strategies. At the office of a Swiss client, we watched the collapse of Bear Stearns on Bloomberg and it started to feel like the beginning of the end. The champagne was running out, and although I told myself I was helping I didn’t care as much about product features and bug fixes as I was pretending to.

So I moved from Financial Services to teaching English in South Korea.

I made it 6 months; not being very good at being pushed around (is anyone?!) I was used to lunch breaks and bonuses, whilst at school I was lucky to get a toilet break and a bottle of Yakult from an invested parent.

Fast forward another couple of years and I was back to looking for answers again.

Psychotherapy training was really self help.

What do you do with trust issues and a trail of 5 mediocre therapists in your wake?

My answer was to do it myself.

I wasn’t really listening to the course requirements, I didn’t know we needed to do a dissertation, or how many client hours I’d need before I qualified. My main thought was ‘perhaps finally I’ll figure out what’s wrong’.

Here’s what I wrote in my last course essay:

This course is both the strangest and most difficult thing I have ever done. On a good day, it is the most liberating and rewarding thing I have ever done, on a bad one; the stupidest and craziest.

In the end, I did get a lot of answers (although perhaps not the ones I was expecting).

And if I were the narrator in Mean Girls I’d say something like:

Maybe I did end up as a translator after all, just not the kind I’d expected to be.

The more you understand what happened to you, the less personal it will feel and then you’ll see it wasn’t really about you.

You were just part of some weird long forgotten system that blamed you and kept you stuck.

WHAT AM I LIKE AS A THERAPIST?

Clients are often surprised to discover that therapy is not always dry and boring. We often end up laughing and we don't always need to be serious to make progress. Being able to laugh about feeling embarrassed or things that have gone wrong can be a great way to get rid of that embarrassment or that you’re the only person ever to have done something you wish you hadn’t.

I try to be as straightforward as I can. I don't use complicated words or acronyms, and explain any terminology as I go along. If you have questions you can ask me!

Who I work with

• You’re smart, and by all external measures successful.

• People come to you with their problems. (And you give good advice, if you do say so yourself.)

• You’ve still got nagging doubts about your life. You thought you’d feel something more. (Bigger, older maybe, less scared).

• People who have been labelled stubborn (as a fellow stubborn person, if we can get you on your own side then you’ll be cooking with gas).

• You played the game, bought the flat, climbed the ladder but none of it helped or filled the hole you can’t locate (it feels too cliché to say it’s in your heart).

What you’re suffering with

• anxiety

• panic attacks

• low self esteem

• feeling bad about yourself

• trust issues

• feeling like you should be able to achieve more

• procrastination

• perfectionism

• people pleasing

• lack of motivation and feeling unfulfilled.

You politely describe their family situation as ‘complicated’, I would call it dysfunctional.

You might identify with the label of CPTSD (complex trauma). This might look like; a history of childhood trauma, abuse or neglect (including Childhood Emotional Neglect or CEN) or any of the symptoms above.

Does therapy even work?

Look, I wouldn’t be here if it didn’t and that’s why you’re intrigued. You don’t want a therapist who frankly seems to be struggling as much as you are.

I work relationally, which means I’m interested in how you relate to me and others around you or those in your family or friendship circles. People bring their patterns and ways of being into therapy, which means I have an insight into how you are in the ‘real world’. Working relationally allows us to practice changes in the therapy room first before taking them out into the real world and improving your real life relationships.

In real life, this means, I’m not your parent but I can help you figure out where the programming went wrong and help you debug your code. (I knew all that database troubleshooting would come in handy one day!)

How can I trust you?

Don’t trust me.

I won’t bullshit you with the ‘this is a safe space’ line you’ve heard so many times you want to throw the Ikea chair into the stream that seems to appear on every therapy website.

But, you should be prepared to tell me what you’re thinking, what you notice, who I remind you of. When you gave up, what keeps you going. That, we can work with.

I love working with clients who have struggled to find reliable people in their lives. If I can be reliable and trustworthy for my clients, I might be the first person to have ever really done this. They might never have had someone who listened to them or understood their feelings. If they can trust me, they can learn to trust other people.

We can talk about how to tell if people will respect their boundaries, be kind to them and listen to them. I can help them to have healthy relationships with people that will treat them well. This can be life changing for people who may have felt alone their whole lives.

People who come to see me are ready to change and try new approaches.

Many of them have tried therapy before or attempted to work things out for themselves and want some input into what works. I don't try to direct your life or pretend I have all the answers.

My progress is hard won. I continue to work on myself so you won’t look at me and see the ‘shit I struggle with that too’ look you’ve spotted on previous therapists’ faces.

That’s not to say I’m perfect or fixed or whatever you want to call it.

But you don’t want that anyway, you just want honesty and solidarity.

I take a collaborative approach so that you have someone on your side. I'm not going to tell you what to do and I don't want add to your list of people you need to impress or put on a front with. 

EDUCATION AND BACKGROUND

BA hons French and German, UCL 2003

PG Dip Integrative Psychotherapy

I’m UKCP registered, level 7 in counselling qualifications and column C in Scoped.

I completed a 4 year, Masters level, post graduate diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy in 2014 with Euro CPS. Euro CPS was founded by the late Dr. Ken Evans and by Joanna Hewitt-Evans Msc.

Masters level means that I am trained to level 7 and received personal therapy and supervision for the course duration. I completed three years of Psychotherapy training and one year dissertation training. I am now registered with the UKCP through SCPTI (Scarborough Counselling and Psychotherapy Training Institute).

This is Scoped column C if you’re a real therapy geek (In simple terms, it’s the highest tier of a three tier model designed to make different trainings comparable across types of therapy and ways to train. Column A being the basic requirement, column B the middle and column C the highest level of training).

Prior to this I completed a Counselling Skills certificate at Metanoia in 2009. 

I have undertaken specialised training in sexual abuse, trauma and CPTSD (complex trauma) and have volunteered as a therapist for sexual assault survivors. I have also attended BEAT (eating disorders charity) as a volunteer supporter.

ACCREDITATION

I have been registered with the UKCP since 2016 (as above through SCPTI). This means I meet the high standards they set for psychotherapists, including ethical standards, standards for continued training and supervision requirements. 

The UKCP requires psychotherapists to have undertaken a 4 year, masters level course with weekly personal therapy throughout training and regular supervision.

Please note that training standards are not uniform across the UK and training standards vary widely. The terms ‘counsellor’, ‘therapist’ and ‘psychotherapist’ are not currently legally protected titles.