You want professional support & guidance so that your experience of life improves in some way. Google searches throw up a confusing array of options. The more you search, the fuzzier the boundary between these two types of support for ‘healing’ and ‘personal growth’, becomes.

The key distinction between the therapy and coaching services I offer, is where you are at, right now. An athlete who is injured may choose a physiotherapist to get them back on track. Once training again, the athlete will need coaching to maximise their performance. So too, might different personal growth professionals and services be most appropriate for you in different life situations.

What are Therapy sessions? A healing space

Psychotherapy can help you explore your personality, attachment styles and boundaries. This means you can better understand yourself in relationships and can develop your communication and relating styles.

Everyone can benefit from becoming more aware of how they see the world and why. Early in our lives we create psychological defences and strategies that become our ‘beliefs’. In later years, some of these may no longer serve us but they have become our ‘reality’, so we are ‘blind’ to them.

Hypnosis (trancework) with psychotherapy can enhance people’s health and well-being in the treatment of both psychological and medical issues. Menopause, relationship difficulties, anxiety, panic attacks, IBS, depression, insomnia, pain management, addictions, mood swings and many other symptoms can be successfully resolved through Hypnotherapy with psychotherapy.

What does a typical therapy session with me look like?

A typical session with me would begin with listening to whatever you are most concerned about and clarifying what you would like to change and be different. Followed by a deep relaxation, during which we can walk through situations you find tricky, as well as learn to be more relaxed in body and mind. The relaxed state enables you to develop a compassionate, self-focus so that you can direct your energies on the areas of your life that you feel would benefit. We can also use lighter trance states to desensitise and reprocess feelings and memories from your past which are not yet resolved.

During hypnosis, you will remain fully conscious and in control at all times. You may find, however, that change is surprisingly easy, once your subconscious is involved in the process. The trick is to find the sweet spot between relaxation and sleep, where your imagination is at its peak and you feel completely safe to explore new ideas. The positive associations that you form in this state will stay with you after the session.

As you reflect on your experiences, you become more self-aware of any emotional difficulties that surface when you do. You can learn, and experiment with, new ways to manage a situation, with new thinking styles and behaviours. The pace is set by you, and you will decide each time, if and when to book another session. Therapy is a more open-ended process than opting for a coaching programme. The number of sessions required varies from client to client. My job as a therapist is to put myself out of a job!

Some clients choose to book therapy sessions as simply ‘time out’ moments, that allow them to reflect, relax and recharge. Others may have experienced events, in childhood or more recently, that they need time to review, heal, change, recover and learn from.  

Research shows that the success of therapy is strongly linked to the quality of the therapist-client relationship. You need to feel safe and understood to be able to lower your psychological defences, review your ‘limiting beliefs’ and fully explore your experiences.

A free ‘discovery’ call offers you the opportunity to meet me, ask questions and assess if you would like to work with me as your therapist.

Vibrant Life Coaching Programmes

Vibrant Life coaching programmes are empowering, structured and firmly focused on motivating you to create the future you desire. You will be encouraged to take full responsibility for, and control of, your life. You will develop a clear pathway to reaching your specific internal and/or external goals and desired outcomes. To get something different we need to do something different, so taking agreed actions between coaching sessions is a key element of the life coaching process.

Your 1-2-1 coaching sessions will identify where you will benefit most from focusing on, share ways you can do this, motivate you to take action and hold you accountable for putting your own growth at the centre of your daily priorities. Between coaching sessions you will have unlimited email contact with me and as your journey develops, I will share additional resources that can assist and support your flourishing.

Therapy or a Coaching Programme?

Therapy offers a space in which you can reflect on and explore your experiences to accelerate your personal development…coaching is an activating process that will empower you to reach for and live your best life.

Some clients may initially choose to work with me as a therapist. If they are feeling wounded or victimised, like the injured athlete, they may first want the nurture and gentle safety of this space to reflect on what’s happened and resolve any negative, reoccurring patterns in their life experiences and choices.  Once they feel stronger and ready to push themselves further they may move onto a coaching programme. This is like the athlete whose injury has healed and now wants to restart their training. In this event the therapy process would be formally ended and a new contract of coaching work agreed between us.

As a trained psychotherapist and mindset coach, I draw on empowering, transformative, evidence-based, integrative models of human psychology, neuroscience and self-development to provide an outcomes-focused service. You will experience feeling fully listened to, heard, and affirmed in a safe, confidential, non-judgemental space. This provides the conditions within which you can begin to heal, appreciate yourself and live more fully.

You can explore how some of your past experiences may be continuing to impact negatively on your current life. Throughout the process, you will gain deeper insights into your psyche, with the support to change any patterns of behaviour and/or thoughts that are getting in your way. How we view our experiences, what we pay attention to, and our relationship with our ‘inner critic’ – all make a huge difference to how much we enjoy our lives. Happiness really is an inside job.