My Approach
My path towards becoming a therapist, as for many, came from very personal questions and struggles. These experiences made it possible for me to relate to and become curious and understanding of the human condition. The education that followed deepened this understanding and provided tools to help others on their journey.
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After completing master studies in Clinical psychology I went through five years of specialized psychotherapy studies in Transactional Analysis and became an Internationally Certified Transactional Analyst. As my interest grew more towards working with those suffering from eating disorders, where the body is so central, I felt the need to integrate the body into the work and completed additional education in body centered psychotherapy.
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Working with the mind allows us to understand what is happening and gain important insights. However, it so often happens that even when we understand, we still feel like there is a part of us functioning outside of our conscious will, "making" us do or feel things we would rather not. Bringing our awareness to these different parts of ourselves and how they play out through our bodies- the way we tense our jaw while speaking about a certain topic, or find it difficult to take a deep breath, can bring us in communication with them. Both in my personal and professional experience, it is when we are able to integrate our parts, to both understand and experience them, that we move towards healing.
Working with parts
We've all had the experience of internal conflicts. One part of us wants to quit smoking, but another one continues to smoke. One part wants to get really angry at someone and another one shuts it down. One part wants to loose weight and have full control over the body, while another one does the exact opposite- foregoes all control and indulges in a binge. Yet a third part might simply want to let go of the battle and have a peaceful, balanced relationship with the body.​
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It can seem scary to think of ourselves as having multiple personalities, but the truth is we are all made of parts that relate to each other in different ways. There are no bad parts or good parts, they all have a purpose in our system and try to protect us in different ways. The more we were hurt in the past, the harsher our protective parts will become.
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In our work together you will have a chance to make sense of what might seem like an internal chaos, to differentiate your parts, understand them and find a way that they can start relating to each other in better ways, which leads to a sense of integrity and wholeness.
Working with the body
Often, it is easier to understand what is going on than to actually feel it an experience it. I remember going through regular talk therapy for quite some time and always feeling like I could understand the issue and get the insights, but nothing in me moved, I continued feeling the same. When I started working with a body psychotherapist I started actually feeling and experiencing what I was previously just understanding.​
Working with the body can include therapeutic touch, but it doesn't have to, and when working online, it obviously doesn't. When we work with the body we bring mindful focus on how what we are feeling is getting expressed through our bodies. As an example, a common sensation in people with eating disorders is a feeling of emptiness in the stomach area. When we bring mindful focus to this empty sensation, sometimes we discover there is a feeling of loneliness there that we are trying to avoid. Recognizing this feeling, staying and working with it can lead to the old strategies of restricting or binging, that served to protect us from this feeling, to no longer be necessary.
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The more we are able to recognize and address our bodies, the less we feel we need to exert control over them (e.g. through restriction) or that our bodies hijack us (e.g. through binging). Then we can move into flowing naturally with our bodies and having them as a source of wisdom and wellbeing.
