What is healing?

Healing is defined as:

• The restoration of a sense of meaning, purpose, sense of self, and quality of life, despite struggles with the illness.
• The process or period of gradually regaining one's health and strength.

For me I see healing as a process of regaining psychological and physical integrity after there has been hurt, damage or scarring.

Integrity for me is a state of being where we are whole and undivided, despite our history. Integration happens when all the different parts of us start to co-ordinate rather than working in opposition to each other; where there is harmony and balance in the system, where parts are unburdened of the residues of their traumas and there is access to your Self energy, where you can account for the conflicting needs of your various parts despite whatever the world throws at you.

Someone once gave me the concept of 51% Self Leadership, where there is enough consistency in our Self energy to start to turn a corner in the quality of our daily experiences.  We may never be truly “healed”. We are always the sum of our history and we’re informed and shaped by the life events that have confronted us and those of those around and before us. However there is a time for many of us on our healing journey where we are, increasingly more often than not, able to re-centre and find our internal ground; to grasp a sense of Self enough to navigate the next decision or moment. This increases over time with treatment.

Increasingly over time we begin to know ourselves more and more, to know what we can and can’t tolerate, to work on building our capacity to engage with the world and to know when to stop pushing. We have access to both the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of our nervous system in healthy balance. We operate increasingly in a relaxed state available for pro-social behaviour, connection and co-regulation.

When we are integrated we have more energy. When we are integrated sex is a part of life with no more or less importance than anything else.

Let’s look a little at sex, acknowledging this as just one aspect of our experience.

Sexual Integration happens when we connect the dots between all the fragmented aspects of ourselves, put the past in the past and allow our hearts, heads, guts and genitals to communicate with one another and make decisions that feel really good both in the moment and in every moment after.

Sex is not a source of drama or torment or self flagellation or self-aggrandisement, or control or numbing.

When we integrate an aspect of our sexuality and the body lets go of its need to hold and protect us against the perceived perils of our aliveness we not only release the connected Eros (life-force) energy that has not been available to us until now, but we also release the tension and effort our body-minds have been putting in place to hold split-off parts of us away in the unconscious and in our physical holding patterns. We become free to play and to explore a broader range of our inner parts through physical and/or erotic contact. 

We are also gifted with the capacity to hold more energy. We open up, we breathe deeper and we let more life live through us. We let others see us and we delight in the impact we have on others and that they exert on us.

In therapy we work to integrate your system so you can experience sustained change.

Healing comes from the powerful combination of Self compassion, safety, cognitive understanding, physical release and the allowing of erotic energy and lost qualities of your Self back into the system. 

As you step into full agency, developing the skill and power to avoid giving yourself away to others and to find and express the "deep yes" from inside your own being you add to this the relationship skills that you can take home to transform the way you show up in your relationships.

The ability to integrate change is what makes Psychosexual Somatics Therapy (PST) and Internal Family Systems (IFS) stand out from many other modalities. We dose change into the nervous system and body-mind in a way where it can be remembered and new ways of being can be experienced consistently.

My aim is to give you a pair of fancy (and ethical) new shoes you can wear out to explore new territories, and a map to get safely back home.

Living in Integrity

When you are in Integrity with yourself you have choice. You are not subject to the cries and demands of the most terrified and vocal aspects of your unconscious mind. You experience a deeper level of clarity, love for and peace within yourself and you develop the capacity to create experiences for yourself and others where you can play, learn and grow together.

Integration is a ongoing process for all of us to continue to explore. The more we resolve inner conflicts the more we keep expanding. 

Your Sexuality, like any aspect of you, is uniquely yours. It's your body and your pleasure and your choice what you do with it. In therapy we hold that principle right from day one, ensuring you retain agency for your body and your own choices. You can then meet your partner/s from within your own boundaries and carve out experiences that feel safe, sensual and steamy for you both.

Healing through a sexual lens gives more freedom in your life.

If you can identify and correct a pattern of unhelpful behaviour in your Sex and Intimacy you will be on a fast-track path to correcting that pattern in your everyday life and you will be astounded at the freedom that opens up for you and the shift you experience in your experience of existing. I wouldn't do this work if I didn't believe in the profound empowerment of reclaiming your relationship to your own sexual energy and to your body.

Everything shows up in your sex. Everything.

We support the creation of the conditions in which your body can heal itself.

Throughout the course of treatment, we become detectives, deeply curious about your patterns and behaviours, the wisdom of your body and its survival structures and we gently coax your system to let go of what no longer serves you, or was never yours to begin with, and to re-open channels of internal communication, allowing you to feel more alive, safer in your vulnerability, more powerful in the world and ultimately more You.

You bring your agenda and a commitment to personal growth and expansion and I hold the container for your healing: expertise in human psychosexual neurology, an environment of deep listening, safety, presence and non-judgement, my own parts and Self energy, compassion for all your parts and an absolute comfort with the emerging presence of your sexuality.

You are the Captain of your own journey.

We don't spend years of therapy together unless you want to. I'm not interested in your repeat business, although I look forward to getting to know you. I'm more interested in your healing, your safety and your Freedom.

I'm interested in you going back out into the world and becoming a Self-led force to be reckoned with, a force that impacts the people and this planet that so desperately needs healthy, conscious and heart-centred leadership.

I'm interested in you fulfilling your potential relationship with your Self and having as much or as little fulfilling, heart-opening sex and deep intimacy on the way as you would like.

My presence holds yours only as long as it takes for you to fully hold yourself. 

Healing is a process. I offer a hand on your journey and a place to come home to if you ever lose your way.