Qualifications and Membership
I am a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and abide by the BACP ethical framework for counselling and psychotherapy. I am also on the BACP Register of Counsellors and Psychotherapists. BACP is one of he largest professional bodies for therapists in the UK and operates a Code of Ethics and Practice as well as a complaints procedure in order to ensure the highest professional standards. I can also be found through Beat, the UK's leading charity supporting anyone affected by eating disorders and at the BACP Therapist Directory.
There are three sources from which psychoanalysts learn how to conduct psychoanalytic treatment: their own experience of therapy (first as analysands and subsequently as analysts), regular supervision, where they discuss any issues arising in their practice; and the study of psychoanalytic theory, as set out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century and developed further by Jaques Lacan. Much of Freud’s work remains central to some of our most fundamental understandings of psychology and of counselling and psychotherapy. For example, the use of free association, transference, dream analysis, defence mechanisms and the unconscious mind are all of immense value to modern day psychodynamic psychotherapy practices.
My Work
Apart from my private practice, my clinical experience is varied and includes working for the NHS, charities, and Further and Higher education institutions. I have worked for five years as a bereavement counsellor within the Bart's and the London NHS Trust, as a psychotherapist at the Department of Psychological Medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and as a psychotherapist at the Outpatient Eating Disorders Unit at Springfield University Hospital.
For the last five years I have been working therapeutically in several educational institutions including Goldsmiths (current) and Greenwich universities, supporting and mentoring university students whose mental health and learning difficulties have been holding them back from managing the demands of study or following their career aspirations.
In the last year, I joined a small team of psychoanalysts running "Bubble and Speak", a drop-in in South London where we welcome pregnant mothers, parents and carers with their small children in a space where they are welcomed and listened to whilst interacting with other children and their parents.
I work with anyone who feels they might benefit from therapy. I have particular experience working with relationship problems, depression, anxiety and panic attacks, trauma, and workplace and study-related stress . More specialised areas of work include:
Eating Disorders
I am experienced in working with people with anorexia, bulimia and compulsive eating issues, an area on which I am also undertaking research and have a special therapeutic interest in. It is widely believed that the person who develops an eating disorder is striving to conform to some ideal body. However, although such strivings may play a part in the development of an eating disorder, they can hardly account for it: the conflicts, fears and anxieties that lie behind such issues are much deeper and affect the individual at a fundamental level. Therapy can help by working with the person towards an understanding of their relationship with food and their bodies and exploring the thoughts and emotions that have manifested in the development of the eating problem.
Bereavement
While some people come to see me only a few weeks after a loved one has died, others come many years after their loss, usually on realising that their grief is blocking them in various areas of their lives and they cannot move on. The loss of a loved one can have a devastating effect and tears a hole in the emotional fabric of those left behind. Mourning is a complex, multifaceted process and the person in mourning can experience a wide range of emotions such as feeling overwhelmed, empty, guilty or angry. Very often, a period of mourning can revive previous separations and losses. Psychotherapy can help the person articulate the experience of their loss and in this way can facilitate the mourning process and help them come to terms with it.
Research
My current research is focused on desire and the relationship to the body in bulimia and anorexia. Some of my previous research areas and topics include: Female subjectivities in 'The Double life of Veronique', addiction as a symptom of modernity, working with the 'borderline' patient, psychoanalysis and film and trauma and change in psychoanalysis.
