Still Place Psychology

In my private practice, Still Place Psychology, I work with adults of different ages coming from different walks of life. Many people present with depression and anxiety symptoms, psychosomatic conditions. People come to deal with their trauma, challenging relationships – both personal and at work, dysfunctional behaviours such as addictions, immature relating, obsessions. We find stuck emotions that cause both body and mental sickness. We look at anguish and pain, grief and loss. Some people come to therapy because they feel purposeless. Others feel troubled inside and desperate. Some ask for support to grow and develop more.

In the first few sessions I listen and try to understand. I try to get to know you. Together we create an ambience of ease and safety which allow for trust to start building. The work we do together involves honesty and openness, readiness to disclose, explore and looking deeper into oneself. This necessitates a strong therapeutic relationship, which needs time to be built. It is as if together we are cooking a good soup intended to nourish us; we need a good pot, we need fire, we need good ingredients and preparation know how, we need waiting and slow cooking so that the best soup can be made. We need to work together too. What happens in the therapeutic relationship is grist for the mill – we use our here and now to challenge us to become more aware and insightful and make choices.

As a psychologist and psychotherapist, I invite you and together work to build a stronger ego capable of acceptance, appreciation and esteeming yourself. I hope that we work together to build a confidence that flows from humility and centredness. I hope that this confidence strengthens your sense of agency, being able to make choices that are right by you and knowledgeable of the consequences. I hope we can build a therapeutic relationship where we can be honest, bear the difficult, challenge the comfortable and familiar, and stay to work through. Then say goodbye when the right time comes. We would journey together for a reason and a season or some seasons.

In addition, being a Jungian analyst, I would want to take you a few steps deeper if you want. I would ask you for your dreams, your fantasies, your body sensations and symptoms, to bring to our consciousness, what lies beyond our ego’s ways of experiencing and managing the world. Think of ego as the one who drives us through our reality. Ego prefers and strives for a smooth road. Yet ego needs resources and these will come through a relationship with the Self. Think of the Self as a centre of order, knowledge, resources. Working consistently with our dreams, fantasies and symptoms, signals to the Self, the ego’s desire to make contact, create relationship, dialogue. And as we know, it is through relationship that we grow, only that this time, it is a relationship with our centre, our still place if you want.