Why Choose Integrative Psychotherapy?

A Relational, Body-Centred Approach to Lasting Change

What presents in adult life as anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, addiction, co-dependency, self-sabotage, chronic self-doubt or consistent relationship problems, are often actually patterns of self-abandonment that were once necessary for survival but now create suffering.

Why relationship matters most in psychotherapy

As humans, we are many things, but more than anything else, we are wired for connection. Evolutionarily, biologically and neurologically, we are social beings. Everything about us orientates us to be in relationship. This is not a bad thing. We need relationships for survival, growth and happiness. But it does mean that everything about us, from the way we act and behave, to how we feel about ourselves and the world, even right down to how our nervous-systems are wired, have all been intricately shaped by our experience in relationships, especially early in life.

Crucially, we adapt to stay in relationship with important figures like caregivers, teachers and peers, even if that means losing contact with ourselves. So, we need the support of a healing relationship to find contact with ourselves again.

The most consistent finding of all research and theory in Psychotherapy is the centrality of relationship to human development and healing. So, while therapy may explore thoughts, behaviour, feelings, narratives, bodily sensations and nervous-system regulation, the real change, at the level of the person, is going to happen through being in contact in relationship.

We live in a very mental-based, goal-orientated culture. So, often people think of psychotherapy from that level of reality. In fact, it can be a real paradigm shift to begin to understand the idea that real holistic change, change that addresses the cause and not just the symptom, takes time and happens through the process of relationship itself.

I totally understand that you come to therapy wanting ‘answers’, ‘insight’, even ‘solutions’. Yes, awareness and tools for self-regulation can be very important. But the truth is, real change, at the level of the person, is what happens subtly, through the back and forth of how these simpler elements are shared.

In Psychotherapy, it is the slow, gentle processing of experience in a supportive relationship that gradually allows for unfelt feelings to be moved through, for unmet needs to be honoured and grieved, and for rejected parts of the self to gradually be brought back into consciousness and welcomed home. This is what creates actual lasting change because when this happens, you are no longer bound by the unconscious patterns needed to protect you from what can’t be felt or acknowledged. You are not carrying these burdens anymore. Things are different because you have changed.

What makes Integrative Psychotherapy different

Integrative Psychotherapy is not just about bringing together different therapeutic approaches, although it does do that.

Integrative Psychotherapy is fundamentally focused on supporting each client to become a more integrated person through the healing power of relationship.

“It is the process of making whole: taking disowned, unaware, unresolved aspects of the ego and making them part of a cohesive self” (Erskine & Trautmann, 1993).

Through this whole-making we find more inner harmony and ease with ourselves. We also reclaim our aliveness, our openness to life and our ability to live creatively and flexibly, rather than defensively.

How I work as an Integrative Psychotherapist

In my practice with clients, the relationship is absolutely everything. There have been times over the years of working therapeutically where I’ve been blown away by new somatic practices or techniques I’ve learned, only to be humbled by the reality that what makes the most difference to people is steady, caring presence.

So often it’s not about having the answers or the fancy tools but being able to sit with someone in the full complexity of their lived experience long enough for things to shift for them. When therapy becomes too focused on techniques and answers, it can sometimes move attention away from what clients need most: to be met, understood, and accompanied.

In a session, my primary focus is on being attuned to what is happening between us, knowing that this will guide us to the healing that needs to happen. I will integrate some CBT and Transpersonal psychotherapy where useful for clients. Primarily, I work from a foundation of body-centred psychotherapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Body-centred Psychotherapy

In my work, I’ve found that supporting clients to come into more direct contact with their embodied experience and develop their ability to remain centred and grounded even with challenging emotions is crucial for becoming more integrated. Welcoming more of ourselves home into wholeness also means returning to full embodied presence.

 I see integration not just about working with the disowned part of the self – younger child parts, shadow parts, etc. through talking, but also about integrating mind and body (and spirit, depending on the client). Usually, our level of integration or fragmentation is reflected in the quality of relationship between our mind and body.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

I work with the unconscious and have a lens for how our past is shaping our present, as well as how we might work with this to release the past and have more freedom in the present. I am particularly interested in the overlap with new research in neuroscience and neurobiology and psychodynamic theory. These areas guide my practice with clients.

Most importantly, they help me to have a deeper understanding of relationships – your relationship with yourself, our relationship with each other, and how our early experience of relationships shapes how we are in any here-and-now situation.

Neurodivergence and LGBTQ+

Living as a queer or neuroqueer person in a cis-heteronormative and generally ableist society presents further layers of nuance and complexity to development as such inherently social beings.

I am experienced and passionate about working with individuals who are neurodivergent and/or from the LGBTQ+ community.

Who this approach is for

If you are looking for change that goes beyond the surface, if you sense that what you’re dealing with has deep roots, and if you want the opportunity to really get to know yourself within a steady, supportive therapeutic relationship, you’re welcome to get in touch. I work with adults both online and in-person in Mynd Counselling Centre, Bray in Co. Wicklow, Ireland.

To begin, I usually suggest an initial session to give us a chance to see how it would feel to work together and if we might be the right fit for you. Because relationship is central to Psychotherapy being effective it’s really important you find a therapist you feel a connection with and this, of course, can be very personal.