I became involved in setting up the Novara Centre because of my belief that there are many strands to healing and well-being. Sometimes one approach suits one person at one time and later they need something else, sometimes a combined approach really benefits a client.

Also I believe that when we work as part of a multi-disciplinary team, our work is enriched from the opportunities for cross-fertilisation and support.

I see myself as an Integrative/humanistic psychotherapist. This broadly means that I integrate different approaches in my work and that primarily the work is about me as a human being meeting another human being.

Humanistic for me also means seeing ourselves in our wholeness; e.g. mind, body, feeling (and spirit) or including all of our different parts; e.g. critic, fire fighter, manager, drifter, etc.

Very often, people contemplate psychotherapy because they are going through a difficult time in their lives. This may be because they have become conscious of very strong emotions or it may be that it is the opposite that they are noticing that they “can’t feel anything” or that they feel like an auto-man.

Many people consider psychotherapy because they are having difficulty creating and maintaining meaningful and nourishing relationships.

While the process of psychotherapy does involve commitment and can be difficult, I also see it as a very exciting and hopeful one as we journey into self-knowledge, self-awareness and more choice. Psychotherapy is a lot about finding out what are our core beliefs about ourselves, others and life. These are held in our sub-conscious and often completely out of our awareness. With awareness comes choice. We get a moment to ask ourselves “Do I want to be doing it this way? Do I want more nourishment? Is this action/thought supporting me?”

I began my training as a psychotherapist when living in London and did a foundation year in Gestalt at the Metanoia Institute. When I moved back to Dublin, I trained in Integrative/Psycho-dynamic psychotherapy at the Tivoli Institute, Dublin. I then completed a year’s post-graduate training in Gestalt at the Dublin Gestalt Centre. I have been to the US twice to study Hakomi with Ron Kurtz and studied in England with his co-trainer Donna Martin. Donna has now started to come to Ireland and we hope to run a Hakomi training here.

Gestalt and Hakomi are two of the main influences on the way I work. Please click if you would like to know more detail on why I am drawn to Gestalt and Hakomi.