My Approach
I am very optimistic about people's ability to change. I work in a collaborative way with my clients, to learn from their knowledge about themselves, and combine that with my clinical knowledge, so as to help them achieve the best results. However, I never forget that therapy is really hard, and that those people who seek out therapy are courageous.
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I see my work as supporting people to understand the reasons for their mental health problems and how they can improve their wellbeing. I regard most psychological suffering as an emotional response to the circumstances we find ourselves in. So I use psychological approaches to reach an understanding of my clients' difficulties and to work out with them what would be most helpful. I am not tied to one type of therapy, preferring instead to use the therapeutic approach that has the best evidence for working with my client's problem.
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As we still do not know the precise causes of many mental health problems, testing out what works for each individual is an essential and important component of psychological therapy.
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Depending on the client and the problem, I use cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), schema therapy, trauma-focused therapy (TF-CBT or EMDR) , or an approach that integrates more than one of these models. But first and foremost, as a clinical psychologist, I draw on my training in mental health and clinical psychology to discover an approach that is appropriate for my client.