In person in Wellington, New Zealand
and online worldwide
How I help
I offer specialist counselling for anxious adults who are often hard on themselves, feel a lot of pressure, and fear they are letting others down. Many of my clients start therpay feeling dysregulated and overwhelmed by their emotions.
My work is grounded in two main approaches: Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) and supported by neuroscience.
These approaches share a gentle, respectful approach that honours your nervous system and moves at a pace that feels safe. I use these therapies because they align with both my clinical experience and the growing body of research into healing from trauma and anxiety. Rather than focusing solely on symptom management, they aim to help address the underlying processes that keep people feeling stuck.
(IFS) Internal Family Systems Therapy
Befriending all parts of you.
IFS can help you understand and accept who you are and give you a sense of control over what’s happening inside of you.
Have you tried to reason with your anxiety or get rid of your inner critic by ignoring that part of you? Maybe you tried to bully your procrastinating part to submission? If you're anything like me, those efforts probably didn't bring the results you were hoping for.
In IFS therapy, instead of rejecting those parts of ourselves, we can befriend and understand them. When we hear them out instead of ignoring them, they often don't have to shout at us quite so loud (or give us painful sensations or symptoms).
If it feels impossible to accept something so deeply unpleasant, painful and terrifying, you came to the right place. Through IFS therapy, you can start getting to know your feelings at a pace that feels safe.
When we experience trauma, it is difficult to trust ourselves and listen to the answers within. Using trauma-informed approaches, you will be able to trust your own answers again and be your own guide in life.
I am a qualified IFS therapist having completed the official Level 1 training via the IFS Institute.
(DBR) Deep Brain Reorienting
Gentle gift of neuroscience.
DBR goes deeper than IFS and more specifically into a deeper, sub-conscious part of our brain. It is a trauma therapy that helps when talking about it isn’t enough to bring the healing you want or simply feels impossible. This could be beacuse it's too painful or because you may not have the words to capture what's wrong and why you're feeling bad, anxious or overwhemled.
DBR is a structured therapy which allows us to process trauma at its root. Modern neuroscience of DBR helps us do that without the overwhelm that's often attached to having to talk about what happened or going back to painful memories. Many describe it as being gentler than EMDR as in DBR we don't revisit painful memories in full.
Many clients find DBR helps them feel calmer, more grounded, and less emotionally stuck over time.
I'm trained in Level 1 DBR by Jessica Christie-Sands in Australia.
Polyvagal Theory
The nervous system key to wellbeing.
Polyvagal Theory can help us better understand the causes behind your anxiety, overwhelm or depression and work with them.
By understanding your nervous system, you can move between different emotions without getting stuck in survival responses such as anxiety. It's based on trauma research and wonderful for working with those of us who have lived through trauma.
I'm trained in Level 1 Foundations of Polyvagal Practice by Deb Dana and the Polyvagal Institute in the USA.