Therapy can empower you to find your voice and get clarity on how you want to live. Through dynamic conversation and gentle challenge, working in collaboration together, we can start to identify your obstacles and work to overcome them.
I believe emotional distress is our way of trying to express something that needs to be heard and understood, as it is often alerting us to something very important. As such, I aim to listen carefully and challenge sensitively, offering up new perspectives and possibilities for change. Above all, I hope we can establish a genuine connection with one another, creating a trusting place for you to express yourself as honestly as possible.
I honour diversity and value your individuality, so sessions vary and fluctuate in style. For example, some of my clients prefer to come up with tasks or strategies to experiment with between sessions, whilst others prefer a more philosophical outlook, with space to reflect and explore. Some may lean towards more visual or somatic forms of expression, others prefer the language of words, and some may wish to experiment with a variety of expressions. I will support you in finding a balance that feels most empowering to you.
I work with individuals as well as couples and those in close relationships. Generally, relationship therapy sessions are more proactively working towards defined goals, with homework and experiments suggested between sessions.
During your initial consultation I will ask about your hopes and expectations, and offer some ideas as to how we might approach them, which we can review along the way as the work unfolds.
Please see FAQ’s if you would like more information about the practical elements of therapy.
What is ‘Integrative’ therapy?
My particular form of “integration” as it was taught combines 3 of the most foundational therapeutic modalities:
1. Psychodynamic therapy focuses on our past experiences and how they may have impacted our development, often creating patterns of relating to ourselves and others that can become problematic. It takes great interest in subconscious understanding, often through exploring childhood memories, as well as dreams, fantasies, desires and aversions.
2. Humanistic therapy formed in reaction to psychoanalysis and aimed to equalise the relationship between therapist and client; to make the client the expert on their own lives as opposed to the all-knowing analyst. This approach fundamentally prioritises the idea that we are all capable of ‘healing’ ourselves when given access to right supportive conditions.
3. Existential therapy looks at universal human conditions such as loneliness, desire, anxiety, joy, mortality, and how we uniquely respond to these. It takes great interest in how we create meaning and value in our lives, with emphasis on individual freedom and choice.
I have listed the types of therapy in the historical order in which they were established. Combined together, these therapies can form an Integrative approach.
Mind-Body connection: In addition to the above, I also incorporate a somatic awareness into my approach. Often, our bodies are ahead of our thinking minds in intuiting our feelings and needs, and so I may invite gentle inquiry into your body’s felt-sense as we talk. This will be offered in a gentle and explorative way, in which there is no right or wrong expression from you.
Daša Radovanović, MA, MBACP (Accred) 