I'm a fully accredited Cognitive Behavioural Therapist with post graduate certificate in Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT). I am also training to become a fully accredited Schema therapist. I work with using CBT with social and health anxiety, excessive worry, OCD, PTSD  and depression. Over the years I have specialised in working with people, using compassion focused therapy and now schema therapy, who experienced difficulties in early life. Often we can be completely unaware of the impact these things had on us. In adult life this shows itself as high levels of self-doubt, self-criticism, low mood, feeling overwhelmed by emotions, feeling like a failure, feeling alone, blaming yourself for things, feeling guilty, feeling like you have to people please and not being able to put your needs forward. 

Our journey together would entail us understanding what it was like for you growing up - what you felt like as a child (not good enough, alone, like no-one understood you or fearing you would be abandoned or abused). We then explore how you learnt to cope with feeling like that (such as people pleasing so others wont leave you or being perfect so you don't feel defective or not good enough). We focus on the unmet needs you have been left with and in therapy try and meet those needs and heal those painful feelings, thought and memories . In doing this we learn how to develop a healthier way of responding to our experiences with compassion and courage. This will help you to make the changes you need in order to live the life you want to live. 

By working together you will learn to develop self-compassion, cope with your emotions with feeling overwhelmed by them, assert yourself, engage in self-care, pull back from self-criticism and develop confidence, strength and courage.  If you wish to discuss therapy further I offer free telephone consultations.  

For more details about me and the type of therapy I can offer please visit www.compassionatecbt.co.uk