Live Life with Ease and Joy, let Life Flow
Body Psychotherapy is an holistic form of psychotherapy which works towards enabling individuals to become more whole by bringing body, mind, emotions and spirit together.
Body Psychotherapy seeks to create a safe space in which a relationship of trust between therapist and client can grow and deepen. Because this is not a social relationship but a relationship that focuses on your needs, it becomes therapeutic. It is through this safe relationship, that a new sense of yourself can develop, enabling you to make new choices and live life in new ways. As you begin to relate to yourself with kindness, you’ll notice changes in your relationships with others.
My Approach
Working with the connection between Mind and Body
Our bodies hold messages for us all. Perhaps you experience aches and pains in your muscles, your nerves, your bones or joints. On-going symptoms of pain and tension in your body, can come from emotional or psychological discomfort. Tensions can come from habitual postures, that you may not be aware of. Working with simple movements or maybe Biodynamic Massage, can re-tune your awareness of how it feels to be in your body. This close attention can invite emotional responses to express themselves which may lead us into deeper explorations of longer held patterns of frustration, irritation, anxiety, fear or grief. These older patterns may be underlying your postures of defence. Working with the emotions can allow the bodily aches and pains to soften and dissolve, as the original emotional needs are attended to.
Life Flow - Biodynamic Massage
The fast pace of our modern digital lives affords little time or space to process our emotional and psychological experiences and so they are held within our bodies as tensions, strains, dis-ease and illnesses as we become dis-connected from ourselves, each other and the natural world.
Biodynamic massage uses touch - the earliest form of human communication and connection - to create a space in which the client can re-connect to herself and release the natural health that rests within.
Biodynamic massage works to free up blockages and resistances preventing the flow of dynamic energy that awaits expression in each of us as creative, vibrant fullness of being. Live life with ease and joy - let Life flow
Particularly helpful for:
⦁ Developing a calmer approach to life’s challenges and pressures
⦁ Building self-esteem and self-confidence
⦁ Dissolving anxiety and hyper-tension
⦁ Enlivening low energy or low mood and depression
Body Psychotherapy assumes that any problems or difficulties will have a physical counter-part. As well as affecting how you are feeling, anxiety, stress, and trauma will have physical symptoms. Body Psychotherapy has an array of methods to explore the unspoken communications of the body. A session can involve talking whilst sitting in chairs; it might involve lying down and exploring relaxation methods or exploring gentle exercises and movement; it can include using art materials and guided imagery work; objects or cushions may be used to represent people in your life, as we explore patterns of relationship. If it feels right for you, Biodynamic Massage may be introduced. As earliest form of human connection and communication, touch can be a gentle yet powerful way to access the messages of the body.
As your therapist, I will accompany you as we explore together the ways you’ve developed to manage Life’s challenges. Sometimes although these strategies may have protected you in the past, they may be undermining your full happiness and well-being in your current life.
Trauma
Trauma has become a buzzword, these days. That’s not to denigrate it. It’s real and it’s tangible. And it’s increasingly prevalent in our hi-tech, ever faster-paced culture. Trauma is the experience of overwhelm. A traumatic experience is when you feel you have not the capacity to manage what is happening to you. It is when you feel powerless.
In trauma the nervous system loses the capacity to process all of the feelings you experience. All of your nerves live within your body. Reaching from your brain, through your spine to the tips of your fingers and toes, and back. They run through your muscles, your skin, your blood, your bone, your organs. This is why to calm your nerves, we need to work with the body.
Trauma is not the same as daily 'stress'.
A stressful situation makes us feel anxious, worried, sweaty, maybe sick in the pit of our stomach, but somehow, we can get through, find a strategy, do some work, talk to others. We can use our stress response to help us: we can fight back (build a response) or we can flee (move away: leave the job, leave the relationship). So long as we can do something, the stressful feelings of the situation can move through us and we can move forward.
But when we get stuck in a situation that we just can’t manage, our nervous system becomes overwhelmed, to the point where we literally can’t think or focus. At this point we often find we are unable to relax, we lose the ability to sleep well, and so we can’t get the rest we need.
Trauma can come from one overwhelming experience, for example a shocking accident. Or it can be chronic, having gone on for years, for example growing up in a dysfunctional family or living in an abusive relationship.
A nervous system in overwhelm deserves respect and gentle attention to create the space needed to relax and recharge. The work of body psychotherapy is not a quick fix. But a slower, deeper exploration that can offer the space you need, to soften into yourself and learn to care for yourself in the way of a gentle, compassionate parent. Such self-care creates genuine self-esteem that is profoundly health giving.
Overthinking?
Perhaps you don’t feel much in your body? So many of us are so busy with so many responsibilities at work and at home, that we live in our heads, always problem-solving and getting things done. In the outside world. But such habits of doing, can leave us out of touch with our inner world, and our experiences from the neck down. We become disconnected from our true feelings, which can mean we are living a life that does not fully align with our personal authenticity. In the long term, this can become extremely stressful.
So many of us worry about what might happen in the future. We put a great deal of our energy into making careful plans that will keep us safe. Many of us regret decisions or events from our past, even though we know that worrying can’t change what’s gone. Getting in touch with our bodies (and the sensations and feelings moving through them) can help keep us in the Present Moment.
Sleep & Rest
When we get stuck in a situation that we just can’t manage, our nervous system becomes overwhelmed, to the point where we literally can’t think or focus. At this point we often find we are unable to relax, we lose the ability to sleep well, and so we can’t get the rest we need. Either we just can’t get to sleep or maybe we fall asleep but then we wake during the night to hours of swirling thoughts that just won’t stop.
We can explore together what might be disturbing your sleep. Body Psychotherapy can work with breath and guided meditation to help calm your nerves and ease your system into relaxing. Biodynamic Massage can offer a gentle, soothing experience which begins to retrain the nervous system into relaxing more deeply.
Biodynamic Massage uses touch, the earliest form of human communication and connection, to create a space in which the client can reconnect with themselves and release the natural health that rests within.
Biodynamic Massage works to free up resistances that are preventing the flow of dynamic energy which awaits expression in each of us as creative, vibrant fullness of being.
Living in the Present Moment
Working with breath, movement, and guided meditation can re-tune the relationship between mind and body, so that we become more fully aware of how we are experiencing Life’s events and relationships. We begin to free up our energy to serve our personal truth, finding ways to live in peace, with ease. As we relax into who we truly are, we become able to choose our responses as situations arise. We become able to offer more space and understanding, as we meet others as they actually are, without judgement, without expectation. With compassion.
As we grow into our own authenticity, we become free to experience joy and pleasure. To accept ourselves, just as we are. And to accept what Life is showing us. When we begin to let go of struggle and open our hearts to what is, we begin to taste the freedom of living in the Present Moment: we begin to learn to let Life Flow.
What can Body Psychotherapy help with?
Body Psychotherapy can support you to:
- learn to process strong emotions like anger and fear, guilt and shame which may be disrupting your current life
- explore the lessons such strong emotions may be holding for you
- explore relationship patterns built up through your lifetime, which may be causing you distress and unhappiness
- live through grief and heartbreak and find your way to the other side
- manage a sense of overwhelm, explore its roots and work towards a state of calm and clarity
- work through feelings of hopelessness and depression to discover new levels of vitality and joy
- explore the emotional challenges brought by new life stages such as pregnancy, parenting, menopause, and changing family relationships
Sessions & Fees
Sessions are for 60 minutes and cost £60.
After the first session, in which we assess whether Body Psychotherapy is what you are looking for, clients contract to attend weekly sessions, on the same day and at the same time, each week.
About Me
I have completed the core training in Body Psychotherapy and I am a trainee psychotherapist with Cambridge Body Psychotherapy Centre (CBPC). I am building my clinical hours and completing the final requirements for full accreditation with the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). I am currently a trainee member of the UKCP. I am a full member of the Association of Biodynamic Massage Therapists. My work is supervised. I adhere to the Code of Ethics and Practice of CBPC.
My Locations
In Cambridge I work at two locations. I work at the Cambridge Body Psychotherapy Centre, a training centre for psychotherapists, which also has treatment rooms dedicated to personal growth through self-exploration. Each room is spacious and offers a calm, quiet space which is fully equipped with everything necessary for the full range of Body Psychotherapy approaches, including a massage bed, cushions and a mattress for guided mediations and a range of natural objects for Gestalt work. Comfortable chairs and deep carpets, make it a home from home, with a difference: this space is just for you. I am at Cambridge Body Psychotherapy Centre on Thursday.
I work at Satyam Yoga and Well-Being Centre that is dedicated to well-being and consciousness raising. I am very pleased to bring the work of Body Psychotherapy to sit alongside the work of Yoga; for me our intention to bring Joy and Peace to the world and to engage with healing energy, makes us kindred projects. At Satyam I work in a first-floor studio that is full of light and space. Here there are comfortable chairs, a massage bed, cushions, yoga mats and lots of space in which to move and breathe, as we explore your process together. I am at Satyam on Friday.
Get in Touch
If you’d like to make a more personal enquiry, please fill in the form below or email me at LifeFlowBodyPsychotherapy@outlook.com and I will get back to you, within a day or two, to arrange a short introductory call.