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I work Monday mornings, Wednesday afternoons and Friday afternoons.

Sexual abuse support

Have you survived sexual abuse, in childhood or adulthood? Do you want to be seen and heard, and be supported in your survivorship? I work as a Trauma Informed Therapist at a charity supporting male and non-binary survivors of sexual harms, and their supporters, and I can bring this experience to bear to help you in your recovery. 

I have worked with survivors of childhood sexual abuse across a range of contexts, including institutional abuse, abuse by known associates, and attacks by strangers, and with clients harmed by both male and female perpetrators.

Outdoor therapy

Instead of working indoors, I can also support you in outdoor, natural spaces in and around the Bingley area of West Yorkshire. 

If you want to work outside, I actively involve the setting as a third party in the work. This isn't 'walk and talk' therapy; I will ask you to consider what the space is saying to, and how it is communciating with, you. Doing this uses the space as a second therapist, and creates additional opportunities for reflection, meaning making, challenge and support. 

On contact with me, I will suggest we arrange a 15-30min phone or online session (at no charge). Given how important a good relationship is between client and therapist, this first session gives you a chance to see if I am a good fit for you; I will also use this session to ask the following questions of you:

- Whether you have any goals for therapy, and if so, what are they (although if a client comes with no such goals, that is fine and will not reduce the effectiveness of the work).

- Whether you have had therapy before, and what was good and bad about that experience.

- Whether you are currently having suicidal thoughts, or thoughts of harming yourself in some way.

These questions are to enable us both to understand how best I can support you.

If you are coming to therapy with a history of trauma survivorship and want to talk about that in sessions, I might suggest we spend some time working out what calming and grounding techniques work best for you. This enables you to have confidence that we both know how to regulate your emotional state in future sessions, should the work become too emotionally challenging.    

When the relationship with a client is strong enough, I might introduce challenges such as highlighting where a client has contradicted themself, to spotlight maybe where they aren’t being honest with themself or might not know what their reality is, which can help clarify thinking. Fundamentally however, I try to make you feel supported and valued.

If you want to find specific solutions to your problems, then I will support you in exploring your options; I won’t however offer you advice or tell you what to do, as only you have all the information to enable a considered decision about issues affecting your life, whether it feels that way or not.

I regularly review how work is progressing by asking my clients how they feel they are benefiting and if they want to change how we are working. Again, sometimes I use very brief questionnaires for this purpose.

Whether you chose to work inside or outside, in the first full session I will ask you about what brings you to therapy and whether you have any goals for the work, but also about your support network and your general wellbeing currently. These questions will help us work out how best I can support you. 

If you chose to work outside, in the first session, we might also look at exploring the space you decide to work in.