I am accredited to the BACP (British association of counselling and psychotherapy) and I am a member of EMDR UK and trained with the EMDR academy.

I work with anybody aged 16 or above.

You will have met me for an initial 30-minute session, free of charge, where you will have had the opportunity to see and feel if I am the right therapist for you. I will ask you what your goals in therapy are and how you will know if therapy has worked well for you. There is no obligation to meet for a specific number of sessions, and if you are happy with our work, we will review it after 6 sessions to ensure we stay on track.

Sessions are 55 minutes but may be longer if we are in the processing stage of EMDR. They may be up to 90 minutes. 

Sessions are £70 and an invoice will be sent at the end of the month. 

Is therapy online or in person? (Include where you are based) 

Therapy is available online and on zoom (often we do a mix of both) and I am based in central Beaconsfield, with a beautiful garden therapy room, slightly apart from my main house. There is private off street parking and it is in a secluded location. 

Following our free initial session, the first session will be an opportunity for us to meet again, set our goals for therapy and talk about confidentiality and how it works. We will also talk about EMDR in general, what to expect and how it work. 

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation Re-processing. It is a specialised technique involving hand tapping and eye movement, which activates the brain in a certain way to help people recover from traumatic experiences, whether that be a single incident trauma or more complex long term trauma. Trauma means wound, so we work with clients whose nervous system was temporarily overwhelmed by an event, but has become stuck in that moment, resulting in the body and mind being triggered unhelpfully by fragments of memory.

EMDR therapy works by processing the trauma with both sides of the brain stimulated. The bilateral movements and stimulation help a memory become unstuck within the brain and allow our natural neural networks to reconnect from one side of the brain to the other. 

I like to think of it as putting a jigsaw together. Normal memories are stored in the left hand side of the brain, which has access to language and logic to create a whole picture. In trauma, that picture can be broken up into pieces, like breaking up a jigsaw and are often represented by certain sounds and smells and sights, but not the whole picture and often no language to express it. EMDR helps move those fragments from the right to the left-hand side of the brain, where they are whole, make sense and allow us to use language to express them.  

NICE( National Institute for health and Care excellence), the Department of Health  and the World Health Organisation endorse EMDR for symptoms of PTSD including hyper-vigilance, disturbed sleep and poor concentration. EMDR is highly effective for healing trauma, phobias, anxiety related disorders including social and health anxiety and general psychological distress.  

What evidence is there that it works include research links: 

For PTSD: 

• One study showed up to 90% of single-trauma victims no longer have PTSD after only 3 90-minute sessions.  
• 92% of children no longer had PTSD after 4 sessions 
• Another study, found that 100% of the single-trauma victims and 77% of multiple trauma victims no longer were diagnosed with PTSD after only six 50-minute sessions. 
• EMDR significantly reduces the symtoms of trauma, including anxiety and depression 

Find out more here: 

https://www.ptsduk.org/how-effective-is-emdr/ 

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) benefits extend beyond trauma resolution and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We now use this psychotherapeutic method to treat a wide variety of physiological and psychological conditions including medical conditions related to anxiety, stress, panic, trauma, depression, phobias, grief, loss, behavior issues, and substance abuse.  

The process can be mentally and emotionally stressful for some clients, but it is important to remember that you do not need to go into detail about your past experiences for EMDR to be effective. You will be guided safely through the experience and when there are high levels of intensity, they only last for a few moments and then decrease rapidly. 

Sleep may be temporarily impacted and there can be an increase in vivid dreams. 

We would also suggest that after a processing session, you take your time to return to work or your family or you may choose to do your therapy at the end of the working day. We will do some breathing exercises at the end of our session to ensure you are calm. 

EMDR may not be suitable for dissociative disorders or co-occurring mental health disorders such as personality disorders. Please check with your doctor or psychiatrist first to ensure your suitability for treatment and to ensure that your medication is not a barrier.