Therapeutic Approaches at Join Psychology

The foundation of psychological therapy is in a safe, strong, trusting therapeutic relationship within which your individual needs can be understood, heard and healed. Clinical psychologists use something called psychological formulation which uses evidence-based psychological ideas to understand your difficulties and then develop a ‘road map’ or plan to help you heal and move forward. There are always valid and important reasons for every person’s struggles; they key is to understand, unpick and heal them together in a safe, trusting therapeutic relationship.

Psychologists may use a number of different approaches to make sense of a person’s needs and help them move forward in their lives. I primarily take an attachment, trauma and systemically-informed approach in my therapeutic work and you can learn a bit more about what this means, below. 

Attachment-Informed

Working in an attachment-informed way in therapy means understanding how early relationships shape emotional and relational patterns throughout life. Attachment theory highlights how caregivers’ responsiveness impacts a person’s sense of safety, trust and connection. These early experiences influence how individuals approach relationships, cope with stress and navigate their own and others' emotional needs. Recognising these patterns allows us to explore how attachment dynamics contribute to a person's current challenges.

Attachment theory recognises that the problematic repeating patterns in a person's life were or are somehow 'adaptive' - this means that rather than seeing patterns of behaviour as "good" or "bad", we understand them as responses developed to ensure safety in different contexts. This means that at some point, a problematic pattern of behaviour was intended to help the person get back to a felt sense of safety. Viewing current problems in this way helps us to build a more compassionate understanding of them. An attachment-informed approach focuses on creating a secure, attuned therapeutic relationship where clients can explore their relational patterns, build new ways of connecting, and develop a greater sense of emotional resilience.

Trauma-Informed

Taking a trauma-informed approach in therapy means that we recognise, understand and work towards healing the influence of trauma in your life. Trauma results from an event or series of events which were experienced as overwhelming, harmful and/or life threatening. Trauma-focused therapists are increasingly working with a broader definition of trauma, whereby trauma can arise from:

• Too much – a person experiences ‘too much’ at any one time and/or for their developmental stage, which overwhelms the brain and body. 
• Too little – a person experiences ‘too little’ safety, protection, comfort and support in their relationships and/or in response to overwhelming experiences. 
• Too much too soon – a person experiences ‘too much too soon’ when they are exposed to experiences which are inappropriate and/or overwhelming for their developmental stage.

Often, people will experience a combination of ‘too much’, ‘too little’ and ‘too much too soon’ which contributes to their experience of trauma. These experiences have a profound effect on our brains, bodies, sense of self, relationships and place in the world.

We can work therapeutically with both formal diagnostic descriptions of trauma (for example, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Complex PTSD (CPTSD) as well as your lived experience of trauma, without a formal diagnostic label. Regardless of whether you have received a formal diagnostic label relating to trauma, my approach is to understand ‘what has happened to you’, rather than ‘what is wrong with you’ and work towards healing in a safe, relational way. 

Systemically-Informed

Our relationships are essential to our wellbeing. Our brains are quite literally developed in the context of our earliest relationships and this forms the basis for how we relate to ourselves, other people and the world. Therefore, the nature and quality of our relationships is an essential part of understanding what affects our mental health and wellbeing.

In practice, this may include bringing the important people in your life into your therapy sessions and/or reflecting on how your past and present relationships have affected you. If we think it would be helpful to invite others into the therapy, we will always discuss and agree this together.

Taking a systemic approach can also include considering how wider social and cultural factors have influenced you. It can be important to consider how aspects of your identity (e.g. sex, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, age) intersect with each other. The power dynamics associated with different aspects of our identities vary with social and cultural contexts and impact on our experiences of ourselves, others and the world. 

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) and attachment-informed EMDR

I am an accredited EMDR practitioner (adults) which means that I have demonstrated competence in the practice of EMDR under the supervision of an EMDR consultant. I am currently training towards becoming an EMDR Consultant which means that I am specialising in EMDR therapy and provide supervision and consultation to EMDR Practitioners.

EMDR is an evidence-based integrative psychotherapy for a range of psychological and relational problems. EMDR is underpinned by the idea that psychological problems are rooted in traumatic and/or adverse life experiences which have not been fully processed. EMDR helps to link current presenting problems to their historical roots and to process the core experiences which were not processed at the time of the original event(s). This leads to resolution of the psychological problems in a person’s current life. 

Attachment-informed EMDR (ai-EMDR) brings a person’s attachment story more clearly into the therapy. At the heart of this approach is the understanding that most repeating problems that people experience in the present have their roots in the early-life experiences with primary caregivers in childhood. In particular, the focus of ai-EMDR is to blend the structure of the standard EMDR protocol with identifying and repairing stories of attachment trauma which underpin a person’s difficulties. 

Strengths-Focused

All therapeutic work should balance understanding the challenges you experience, alongside your strengths. Sometimes when life is hard, we lose sight of our strengths and therapy is where you can rediscover and reconnect with your inherent strengths and abilities. So, what does this look like in practice? Here are some ways that I will help you to reconnect with your strengths in therapy: 

• Reflecting on your strengths in therapy – we will talk together about your strengths and the times you have succeeded and felt proud of yourself. There are always strengths to be found in a persons’ life and I’m passionate about helping you to find and reconnect with them!
• Hearing from important people in your life – we may ask the important people in your life about your strengths.
• Looking out for strengths throughout therapy – we focus our attention on little wins and glimmers of progress and hope, alongside understanding the problems you’re experiencing. 
• Enhancing strengths – we may use EMDR therapy and/or some aspects of EMDR therapy to identify and enhance your strengths by pairing them with bilateral stimulation to lock in a felt sense of your strengths.