Welcome to my website Joining-in-Therapy, I am a family therapist who offers a safe therapeutic space for families who are struggling with communicating with each other. Difficulties in speaking openly with those we are connected to is a common theme within families and can often have an impact on individual’s lives outside of the family home within  the school and work environment. This can be made all the more challenging when we are increasingly living in circumstances, with external stressors that can feel out of control.

Approach:

• I use a relational attachment phased approach where individual therapeutic sessions are followed by joined family sessions which gives everyone the chance to feel heard and to be given the chance to communicate openly. This affords the opportunity for safer less conflictual more connected conversations to take place.
• I specialise in working with family conflict which can be triggered by transition milestones within the family such as a young person’s search for autonomy and identity as they enter adolescence. As part of the therapeutic service for young people across the age spectrum (both primary and secondary school children) concurrent to the therapeutic process with the family, I will work in partnership with the respective schools inclusive of pupil referral units and any other educational provision, looking towards a joined approach for therapeutic repair.
• I offer family therapy for both families and couples in relation to themes of loss. It is my experience that any family or couple at any given time can experience both predictable and unpredictable lifecycle change as stressful such as bereavement, job loss, and infertility. It is often during this period of change that respective family members can sometimes struggle and feel emotionally neglected, and unsupported feeling that they are not listened to and that subsequently their needs are not being met. Respective family members can subsequently experience high levels of anxiety and low mood as communication becomes more difficult and toxic.

A systemic therapeutic approach can help place a “pause button” on the escalated emotion and provide a safe contained space where expressed pain can be verbalised with a view to joint consideration being given to a collaborative process of change. As a therapist I employ a flexible timely emotionally attuned approach sitting alongside family members to support them through this process.