How Helen Works
Counselling and psychotherapy have many overlaps, and you don’t need to know which you are seeking — Helen is both a counsellor and a psychotherapist.
At the core of the person centred approach is respect. Respect that we are all doing our best in the circumstances, and that if we are struggling that is because what we are facing is difficult to handle. A supportive relationship where we are not judged gives us space to understand ourselves, and frees us up to move forward. To further support people I trained in Processwork, working with trauma, anxiety, and couples.
The power in both Processwork and the person centred approach is that they follow you. Some approaches to counselling impose a way of working on you — for example, some will take you into the past, whereas others will encourage you to leave the past behind and focus on ways forward. Rather than imposing a rigid method, Helen’s approach changes and evolves with you. Whether that is starting with things that happened years ago or focusing on building the way forward, that is what we will do.
The Person Centred Approach
The person centred approach came out of what works in practice. When we experience a safe space where we can think around what is going on for us, a place where our emotions are also welcome, a place where we feel understood and respected, then we become clearer about what we need to talk about, we gain new understanding and find our way forward. The person centred approach is simple and effective. You might come to sessions knowing this is how you would like to work with Helen, or it might simply be how we end up working together.
Parts Work
For some it can seem like we are doomed to be unhappy because of early complexities in childhood or trauma. The good news is that because we found a way to survive the past, a new future can be built by bringing awareness to the parts of us that helped us survive. The parts that tenaciously protect us are good at spotting what is or might be unsafe. We can grow new ways to take care of ourselves, and the protector parts are relieved to find new ways to be. Along the way we can feel less lonely as we connect to more parts of ourselves and improve our inner team work and develop internal secure attachment. This process can feel like unmasking. This work is influenced by Internal Family Systems and Janina Fisher's work on Internal Secure Attachment.
Processwork
Processwork brings a quality of interest and curiosity to what is happening in the moment, and this awareness can help us connect to parts of ourselves that we didn't know were there. For example, many of us who are tense will automatically hold tension in our shoulders and arms; by following this tension we can discover two processes, the process of holding and the process of being held. Getting to know this innate wisdom is liberating. Processwork's roots are in Jungian psychology, Taoism, indigenous traditional wisdom, systems theory and even quantum physics, and it sees us in our societal context, so it is particularly useful for unlocking the social beliefs that make you stuck, or that give rise to addictions, psychotic episodes and inner voices.
Anxiety and Repeating Thought Loops
Anxiety has its origins in a survival response to external threats, like tigers, yet it can become our everyday way of being. Part of this anxiety can be getting stuck in thought loops. Helen brings together information on the physiology of anxiety with useful strategies to reduce it, including physical exercises to help us find calm, tally sheets to help us track what triggers the anxiety, how to bring in our thinking brain to make a proper risk assessment, and practising leaning in to the feelings which precede the thought loops.