How I Work
My approach to therapy is a holistic and integrated one which recognises the importance of body as well as mind processes. I work by exploring your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, behaviour and physical responses, helping you gain clarity around your experience, particularly noticing repeating patterns in how you relate to yourself and those around you.
Through our life experiences and interaction with others we can learn to change ourselves to "fit in" and then lose touch with what we really think and feel. We can become stuck in patterns of behaviour and beliefs about ourselves that get in the way, changing how we relate to ourselves and to others, and stopping us living satisfying lives.
I work at your pace, supporting you to come to a greater awareness of yourself, whilst being gently challenging. The therapeutic relationship provides the context for our exploration and is the means through which healing comes. Through our dialogue new possibilities can emerge, enabling you to make different choices about how you live your life.
About Me
I have always been interested in therapy and how it works after I experienced it for several years myself in my twenties. After completing my psychology degree I worked for Naval Welfare offering emotional support by telephone to Naval Personnel and their families, and also trained as a volunteer bereavement counsellor working primarily with children.
These experiences led me to want to train professionally as a counsellor. I did this whilst I worked in a voluntary organisation which supported families with young children. Here I facilitated training days that included assertiveness, counselling skills, parenting skills, stress management and relaxation, and building self esteem.
Once qualified as a counsellor I gained extensive experience working within the NHS with clients experiencing depression and anxiety; sometimes due to longstanding issues and sometimes as a result of recent life events. I also worked within a counselling service working therapeutically with clients who wanted help to reduce or manage their alcohol use, alongside addressing the underlying trauma that triggered this. I developed a small private practice alongside these positions.
Since my initial training I had wanted to deepen my skills further and chose to study Gestalt Psychotherapy at The Metanoia Institute in London. This training was an intensive five years of study that deepened my awareness of the importance and value of exploring body processes, as well as mind, to help me understand and make meaning of my experience. Our felt sense offers an implicit knowing that we have learnt to ignore, giving priority to our thoughts.
I have built on that knowledge and experience to specifically focus on how we can use our felt sense to help ourselves live more fully if we have experienced trauma. Sensorimotor psychotherapy focusses on our immediate experience - it does not require a retelling of our trauma, but exploring how it continues to impact us bodily in the present so we can restore a sense of safety. For some that is enough but for others we can then process what is "left over" from that past experience.
The Advanced Trauma Training taught me that that way of working for some may still be too much; that there may be a need to go even more slowly and gently, paying attention to parts of us that have been deeply impacted by childhood trauma. Life can be experienced as an ongoing trauma when we have not been supported to manage that impact at the time. This is a very gentle way to help you to both understand the overwhelm and know how to calm your nervous system.
“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer
Qualifications
MSc Gestalt Psychotherapy
BSc (Hons) Psychology
Dip Gestalt Psychotherapy
Adv Dip Humanistic Counselling
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for Trauma Themes
Advanced Trauma Training: Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment
Certificate in Adoption Support Counselling
Teaching Certificate
Counselling for Depression (NICE approved)
I am committed to my continuing professional development as a practitioner to ensure the ongoing effectiveness of my practice.
I am a qualified psychotherapist Registered with the United Kingdom Council of Psychotherapists and work to their Code of Ethics. I am also an accredited member of the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapist.
© Terri Windsor
Powered by WebHealer