I am integrative therapist with experience of working with anxiety, depression, toxic shame and low self-esteem, difficulties relating to others and more. I am also someone who has her own experience of struggling with her emotions and her mental health. I lived with Borderline Personality disorder for many years. This experience was very painful for me in and of itself, but I also carried a lot of shame because of the impact the disorder had on my identity and on how I related to others. This experience is integral to the way I work as a therapist. Not only is my work informed by my extensive training, but it is also shaped by my personal experience of navigating painful emotions and learning to accept and integrate aspects of myself that had previously felt unacceptable to me. Such experience allows me to empathise with my clients in a somewhat unique way - not only around some of the struggles they bring, but also around the judgement that often overlays them. The latter is something I see a lot of in my work, and it isn't always easy for people to recognise how much they are impacted by their fear of how others might be perceiving them. I see therapy as a journey of self-discovery that can be deeply meaningful, as well as a means of support during difficult times. It may be difficult for you to understand why you are behaving in ways that seem to conflict with what you think or feel. Therapy can help us make sense of these opposing parts of ourselves, and also help us to give more of a voice to parts of ourselves that we may not have safe enough to explore or even recognise before. I work integratively, which means that I have trained in several therapeutic approaches. The approach that I draw one at any one time is dependent upon each individual client - what are they bringing? How are they relating to me? Are they focussed more on what is happening for them in the present or would they like to explore and process things from their childhood or younger years? The therapeutic theories and ways of working that I tend to draw on the most are Psychodynamic, Attachment Theory, Gestalt and Transactional Analysis. I work in quite an organic way. I will ask you what brings you to therapy and what you hope to gain from it, and that shall be our focus for the work, yet things may come up that were not expected initially, and we will explore these together if it feels OK for you to do that.