As a teenager I had my own struggles with mental health and discovering my own identity. During this time, I attended therapy, where I learned about myself and some skills that allowed me to step into myself. Throughout my time in therapy, I always wondered what it would be like for me to sit in the therapist’s chair at some point in the future. I wanted to have the opportunity to give others what my therapist gave to me. This is what lead me to become a psychotherapist.
Originally, I worked in the corporate information technology field for 13 years, but during that time I decided to retrain and switch career to become a therapist. My training consisted of a degree in integrative counselling and psychotherapy, a masters in pluralistic counselling and psychotherapy and I am currently engaged in a doctorate of psychotherapy. As a result, I have been working with clients in therapy since 2016 and have been lecturing in the area of psychotherapy since 2020.
My Story
It is important in therapy that you find the right therapist for you. If you do not feel like you are connecting with your therapist, then they may not be the right fit for you. Therefore, I encourage all clients (my own included) to meet with multiple therapists if needed until they find the right therapist for them. If that happens to be me, great, let’s do some good work together. If it’s not me or the way I work, also great, now we can figure out if there is something missing from therapy that I can offer to improve your experience, or alternatively what kind of therapist/therapy approach you would prefer instead.
My way of working as a therapist is predominantly humanistic, which means I believe you as the client will be expert in your life, and I as a therapist may have some expertise on mental health. Therefore, we work collaboratively to find solutions that work for you and your life, rather than me giving you “generic solutions” that may not suit your specific situation. I have trained in a number of different modes of therapy (e.g. humanistic, behavioural, solution focused, psychodynamic, pluralistic) therefore therapy can be tailored to you and your specific needs. However, I am also aware that as the client, you may not know what each of these modes of therapy entail so part of my role is to translate these modes into everyday language, e.g. do you want space to explore your feelings, or would you prefer to change your behaviours? Is it important that we look at your past or do you only want to look to the future? This way we decide together what the best approach for you right now might be.
My approach to therapy
While I work with a wide range of clients and presenting issues, as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I believe it important to offer a space to clients within this community where they can enter therapy without any fears of how they might be received. This includes clients who may be gender, sexually or relationship diverse (e.g., consensual non-monogamy, poly, etc.). I use personal lived experience as well as academic training to inform therapy sessions with clients from the community.
In addition to offering this space to the community within my own therapy room, I try to advocate for improved experiences of therapy for the LGBTQIA+ community. Some efforts I have made towards this include completing academic research to highlight the challenges some members of the community have within therapy, as well as conducting workshops/training to aid other therapists in understanding what is needed when engaging with LGBTQIA+ clients.
