Finding Yourself At A Threshold
People often find their way to me at a point when life has become difficult to make sense of. Something may have happened: the end of a relationship, a loss, a change in health or a role that no longer fits… but it is not always easy to name what has brought them to therapy. Sometimes they simply know that the way they have been living or coping cannot carry on as it has.
I have come to think of these periods as threshold spaces. The old way of being no longer feels possible, but the way forward is not yet clear. Being in that in-between place can feel unsettling and lonely, particularly when you are usually the person who copes or knows what to do.
You do not need to arrive with the right words or a clear idea of what you want from therapy. We can begin with whatever is present and, together, take the time to understand what may be asking for your attention.
How I Work
I don’t believe that people come to therapy because they need to be fixed. Often, they have spent a long time trying to manage what they are feeling, adapt to what has happened or become the person they believed they needed to be. The ways we learn to cope are often necessary at the time, but they can also take us further away from ourselves.
Talking gives us somewhere to begin. It can help us look at the stories you hold about yourself, the relationships that have shaped you and the patterns that seem to keep repeating. But I am also interested in what sits beneath the story you already know.
There may be feelings you have learned not to express, experiences that have been difficult to put into words or parts of yourself that have been pushed aside over the years. We won’t force these into the open. Instead, we will pay attention to what emerges and become curious about what it might be trying to communicate.
This is what I mean when I talk about helping people develop a relationship with their unconscious. It isn’t something abstract or mysterious. It is about listening more closely to the parts of ourselves that we may not yet fully understand, but which continue to influence how we feel, relate and live.
I sometimes bring breathwork and embodied practices into our sessions because not everything we experience can be reached through conversation alone. Our bodies can hold feelings and memories long after we have learned how to talk around them. Working with the breath can offer another, gentler way of making contact with what is there.
I also hold in mind that none of us exists in isolation. We are shaped by our families, our relationships, the roles we have occupied and the wider systems around us. Something we have carried as a personal failing can begin to look very different when we understand where it came from and how it once helped us belong, survive or feel safe.
My way of working is relational, which means that the relationship we build together is an important part of the therapy. I won’t sit at a distance and analyse you. I will listen, notice, wonder alongside you and be honest about what I see, while respecting that you are the person who knows your life from the inside.
I often work in 90-minute sessions. I have found that this gives us time to arrive and settle without feeling that we have to rush towards something important or fit the work neatly into a 50-minute hour. Some things need a little more space before they are ready to be spoken.
Therapy with me is often longer-term, although we can talk together about what feels right for you. The work has its own pace and rarely follows a straight line. There may be times of movement and times when very little appears to be changing. Both can be part of the process.
Who I Work With
Many of the people I work with are thoughtful, capable and accustomed to being the person other people rely upon. They may appear to be coping well from the outside while privately feeling exhausted, anxious, disconnected or unsure of who they are becoming.
I work with adults, young people and families experiencing:
- Anxiety, overwhelm or burnout
- Trauma or the continuing effects of difficult experiences
- Grief, bereavement and other forms of loss
- Relationship difficulties, separation or divorce
- Questions around identity, confidence or direction
- Becoming a parent
- Menopause or changes in health
- Significant life transitions
- A feeling that something needs to change, even when it is hard to explain what
Not everyone who comes to me has a particular event or diagnosis they can point to. You may simply feel that you have lost touch with yourself, or that the life you have built no longer feels entirely your own. That is enough of a place for us to begin.
Breathwork
Breathwork can be offered as part of psychotherapy or as a practice in its own right. It gives us an opportunity to slow down and notice what is happening within the body, rather than relying only on thought or language.
For some people, breathwork creates access to feelings they have struggled to reach through talking. For others, it offers a way to feel more present and connected to themselves. Each experience is different, and the work will always be approached carefully and at a pace that feels safe for you.
Clinical Supervision
I offer clinical supervision to counsellors, psychotherapists and other therapeutic professionals who would like a thoughtful and reflective space in which to explore their work.
Supervision can hold many things: the needs of your clients, the questions a particular piece of work has raised, your own responses and the personal or professional pressures you may be carrying. I aim to offer a relationship in which you can think honestly, remain curious and feel supported without losing sight of challenge, responsibility and ethical practice.
I also facilitate therapeutic groups exploring life transitions, embodiment and our relationship with ourselves.
About Me
I am the founder of The Wellspring & Yew Therapy Centre in Nantwich. I wanted to create a place where experienced practitioners could work alongside one another and where people seeking support would feel welcomed as human beings, rather than treated as a collection of symptoms.
I have worked across counselling, psychotherapy and breathwork for more than fourteen years. Since 2019, I have also taught on undergraduate and postgraduate counselling and psychology programmes. Teaching has kept me questioning and learning, as well as reminding me that there is never only one way of understanding another person.
My own practice continues to develop through study of depth-oriented and systemic approaches, including Family Constellations. I do not currently offer Family Constellations as a standalone therapy, but this learning has influenced the way I think about inherited patterns, family relationships and the experiences that can pass between generations without ever being openly spoken about.
My training and experience are important, but they are not the only things I bring into the room. I know that being human is complicated. We can make a decision and still grieve what we have left behind. We can understand why something happened and still find that it hurts. We can want our lives to change while also feeling frightened of what that change might ask of us.
Therapy does not remove those contradictions, but it can give us somewhere to meet them with more honesty and compassion.
A final note
Finding a therapist is personal, and it matters that you have a sense of being able to talk to the person you choose.
If something here feels familiar, you are welcome to get in touch. You don’t need to know exactly what you want to say. We can begin with where you are.