Feel more at ease in your own skin and become a welcoming host to your body.
Body Psychotherapy is a powerful and effective way to explore your relationship with your body and mind, reconnect with your existing internal resources as well as develop new ones. It can help with a wide range of issues, from the more easily identifiable such as anxiety & depression or relationship problems to non-specific issues such as feeling emotionally confused and uncertain what you want from life.
This approach emphasises that both mental and physical aspects of our experience influence one another. Emotional issues often manifest physically, and the body holds memories, feelings, and expressions that might not come up easily through words alone. When we are unable to express what is happening on an emotional level our feelings can become embodied; they can become literally held through muscular and fascial contraction.
Over time this creates fixed patterns of how we hold and move our body, for example, we might hunch our shoulders or clench our jaw. Likewise, our thoughts can become embodied – a habitual part of our mind creating fixed internal beliefs about who we are. For example, “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t cook/do maths/understand technology…”.
In effect our body adapts to accommodate ways of being in the world to survive the best way it can; and the way we respond to our experiences creates our body shape and structure.
Body Psychotherapy offers ways and opportunities for us to make sense of our shape and structure and shift those aspects that keep us stuck in habitual patterns of sensation, holding tension, feelings, thoughts and behaviours.
The overall outcome of body psychotherapy is what is called “integration”: where we feel at ease with who we are and how we are living our life; and we feel comfortable in our own skin, free from confusion, inner physical tension and mental conflict. We can be at our best more of the time.
N.B. See the “What is Body Psychotherapy” section below if you would like to know more about what it is and how it works.
Postural Integration (PI) ®
I also offer Postural Integration (PI) ® either as a separate therapeutic process, or as part of body psychotherapy sessions. It is a method for furthering personal development through process-oriented interactive hands-on bodywork.
The focus in PI is on working with the main muscular and fascial systems of your body, first stretching and opening, and later working more deeply. We look at your overall posture, work with parts of your body that seem to hold particular interest, and link these to the body-held feelings and beliefs that emerge. The uniqueness of this method lies in the simultaneous integration of deep tissue connection, breath work, movement, body awareness and emotional expression. More information on PI is available on https://postural-integration.net/.
How does therapy with me work in practice?
My free 30 minute initial consultation
Working with me starts with my free 30 minute initial consultation. This consultation also allows us to get a sense of each other and if we want to work together. I am interested in understanding what changes or issues you might want to explore and answering any questions you have. I will also explain the two different ways of working I offer along with the practicalities of working together. Whilst it is essential that you feel safe and confident that you want to work with me, it is equally important for me to be clear that I can support you to be at your best.
The first session
At the first session we discuss and agree more specific goals for the work including how long it might take. This is not fixed in stone, and we can re-negotiate it at any time. We will review progress regularly to ensure you are getting what you want and that we are both clear on what is working well and change anything not working so well.
At this first session, we will also give attention to noticing and naming what’s working well now and what internal skills, experience and reliable resources you have available to support your therapy journey.
My ethos
My ethos is that of working in partnership with you. I am not there as an “expert” as I believe you are your own best expert. Equally, I cannot do your work for you. Rather, I offer you a compassionate safe space, acting as your guide and witness, sharing my observations and knowledge to support you in doing for yourself.
For your part, a desire to learn and grow, a willingness to engage with yourself honestly and the courage to explore what might feel like the unknown will help you get the most from working with me.
A Note on Safety: Safety isn’t simply a thought – it’s a whole-body experience that includes our physical, psychological and physiological state. We can only engage in change when our nervous system feels “safe enough” to turn inwards and towards those parts of ourselves holding onto pain or vulnerability. Whatever the issue, body psychotherapy respects your pace and your boundaries to ensure together we create a “safe enough” context and container for your therapy journey.
Subsequent sessions
At subsequent sessions, we generally focus on the issues you bring on any particular day, which we then explore further by noticing and naming
• what you are experiencing in your body – sensations, feelings and muscle tension
• what thoughts, reflections, fantasies and beliefs are in your mind
• how both these are influencing your behaviour and relationships.
To support this exploration we pay attention to your breath, posture, movement and body energy alongside talking and listening. We explore how these may be linked to beliefs, memories, feelings and boundaries. I offer you both self-soothing and self-regulation techniques and share any psycho-educational information where appropriate.
In face-to-face sessions we have the option of working with direct contact and touch if together we decide this may be helpful and appropriate. If we choose to include touch in our work, I take great care to ensure that you are comfortable both physically and emotionally. I only use touch with your express consent, and it is for you to decide what feels comfortable for you moment to moment throughout the session. If touch becomes too much at any point you can ask me to stop that touch.
Through paying attention to the above, we gather lots of “data” about what your body system is able to tolerate, along with useful clues as to how your past experience may have contributed to you unconscious patterns and habits. This “data” will also offer us pointers as to what new ways of feeling, thinking and behaving you might try out that will allow you to feel more at ease in your body and increase your capacity to be at your best.
Combining the resources you have available now, with a compassionate and a consciously paced exploration of your past enables us the know what to change, and how, so you can live more of the life you are perhaps yearning for but haven’t yet found a way to bring into being
I offer both body psychotherapy and postural integration
Body psychotherapy is a broad category of therapy rooted in the premise that body and mind are interconnected and form an integrated system – “the bodymind”. The fundamental foundation for body psychotherapy is that what happens in the body influences the mind, and vice-versa.
Being at our best involves our intellectual self, emotional self and physical self. The aim is to observe, understand, and attend to how the body not only reflects your inner world but also responds to your experience of being in the world. The overall outcome of body psychotherapy is a sense of integration or “you at your best”. This is where you feel comfortable in your own skin and free from confusion and inner conflict; where you feel at ease with who you are and how you are living our life.
It combines psychological and bodily interventions equally, maintaining a verbal and non-verbal therapeutic process grounded in established psychotherapy theory. It is underpinned by a wealth of well-documented research explaining the interconnection between our biology, neurology and psychology. They intertwine like the weave of a fabric and cannot be separated out… I am my body, rather than I have a body.
Key body psychotherapy principles include:
• The belief that psychological and bodily processes are linked
• The understanding that emotional pain, trauma, and stress can be held in the body
• That buried emotions can be accessed by working with physical sensations
• The commitment to treat the person as a whole rather than dividing physical and emotional care.
By bridging the gap between body and mind, people may find lasting relief from a range of issues. Using a mix of talking and body-awareness techniques, you are encouraged to notice and express what you feel physically, as well as talking about thoughts and emotions.
Movement, breath, and posture become sources of information, rather than relying only on words. This makes body psychotherapy especially useful where words alone are limiting. The main techniques that might be used in a body psychotherapy session include:
• Breathing Exercises: These help you become aware of tension, tightness, or relaxation. It can also support emotional expression and nervous system regulation
• Movement: Simple movements, posture changes, or stretches can uncover emotional states; they can also create the opportunity to experience something new or different
• Body Awareness Exercises: Bringing attentive awareness to sensations, breath, energy, posture and how parts of the body feel can all help you become fully present in the moment as well as access hidden feelings and memories.
• Therapeutic Touch: if consent is agreed, physical touch may be used to support co-regulation and bring attention to and support the release of tension and tightness.
• Self-soothing & Relaxation Techniques: Methods for releasing bodily tension often relieve emotional stress too; they also support development of internal resources and resilience.
• Centring and Grounding Exercises: These help stabilize and connect body and mind; they help returning to the present and steadying before ending the session.
• Talking & Listening: Naming current issues and concerns; reflecting on any changes, feelings or insights to support integration of bodily experiences.
Body Psychotherapy addresses mental, emotional and physical components together and is suitable for a wide range of people, especially if you have a curiosity about the bodymind connection.
Some people feel disconnected from their bodies following trauma, illness, or mental health difficulties and body psychotherapy can be particularly useful with trauma and unresolved emotions which are perhaps held in the body; they can also be released through the body.
Others may have tried traditional talking therapies but want something different. For example, you may be frustrated by having mental insight and awareness but find yourself still stuck with familiar thoughts and behaviours that aren’t helpful.
It is also well suited to helping with a wide range of issues, from the more easily identifiable such as anxiety & depression and relationship problems to non-specific issues such as feeling emotionally confused and uncertain what you want from life. Many use Body Psychotherapy to support conditions or experiences such as:
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Trauma after accidents or abuse
• Chronic pain or tension
• Grief and loss
• Struggling to talk about feelings
• Noticing that stress or trauma leads to physical symptoms, such as headaches or digestive issues
• Experiencing anxiety & depression
• Wishing to connect to their emotions in new way
Body Psychotherapy uniquely bridges the gap between psychology and somatic work. It Involves a structured therapeutic interaction, offering a depth of evaluation not found in other somatic therapies. It typically emphasises;
• interpersonal relationships and unconscious dynamics
• in-depth psychological change
• experiential embodied assessments & bodywork.
In contrast, Somatic Therapies, typically focus on increasing bodily awareness, reducing symptoms such as muscle tension and chronic pain, and relieving stress or trauma manifestations. There is often less emphasis on psychological theory and structure or the therapeutic relationship.
There are multiple modalities under the umbrella of body psychotherapy.
Embodiment is a term that is related to both body psychotherapy and somatic therapies. This is a useful definition of what embodiment is:
“Embodiment is the skill of living from your body’s signals – sensations, posture, breath, and muscle tension – so you can regulate, relate, and choose your next action based on present-moment physical cues rather than only thinking about your body. It’s a learnable, moment-to-moment skill that links body awareness to better choices.”
Sessions are 75 minutes as bodies benefit from going at a slower pace than our minds. I am also open to longer sessions.
They can be either face-to-face in my therapy room in West Kirby, or online via Zoom. Obviously online sessions will not involve direct touch.
Please note that my therapy room is situated on the first floor and so is not fully accessible; I am happy to discuss alternative venues if you have a disability or condition that means stairs are a barrier for you.
My standard rate fee is £65 per 75 minute session.
If you are either on a low or no income, I am open to discussing a lower rate per session. I do not offer a specific lower rate fee as I have found that each person’s circumstances are individual and I prefer to understand what yours are and to try and find a rate that works for both of us.
We can all benefit from therapy at different times through our lives. If you find yourself wondering why – after all the things you have tried already – you still lack confidence or don’t feel at ease with yourself, I can help you. Why not book your free 30 minute initial consultation now and give yourself the opportunity to find out:
- Whether body psychotherapy is the best option for you right now
- What you would most like to give attention to or to try and change
- How often we might meet & how many sessions might be helpful?
I look forward to hearing from you.