My Approach

The counselling process happens in a safe and confidential environment in which you can gain insights into the issues you are having and discover how to bring about the changes you are seeking.

The Humanistic framework rests on the belief that every person is valuable and has the capacity to grow and achieve well-being with the right kind of support.

To provide this, I see therapy as collaborative work in which my role is to offer my knowledge and skills to facilitate healing and discovery. Instead of giving advice, I walk alongside my clients in their journey toward a more fulfilling life.

In order to do this, we will work with the present of what is happening in your life, your relationships and within the therapy room. If helpful, we will also consider your past experiences and explore how these may have influenced your life. This process of empathic exploration can be healing in itself, but sometimes we may need to focus on emotional regulation and self-care, or on taking action to uphold boundaries or changing unhelpful patterns.

That being said, I will listen without judgement and I will honour what you chose to bring into our therapeutic space, always respecting the boundaries of what you want to keep out of the conversation.

What I offer

  1. A diverse set of modalities within the humanistic approach, which allows me to adapt to different personalities and sets of issues.

  2. Cultural humility. I was raised in a multi-cultural environment in South America and have lived, studied, and worked in four different countries. I will honour and respect your social and cultural perspective and value our differences and similarities.

  3. Experience working with a diverse set of presentations, identities and lifestyles, including neurodivergence, Highly Sensitive People, mixed heritage, experiences of migration, polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy, among others.

  4. I highly value authenticity in my work and in the therapeutic encounter. I am not a detached therapist; I will accompany you in your journey.

  5. I will not interpret your experience from my perspective. Instead, we will strive to understand what you are going through in a way that has meaning for YOU.

  6. Knowledge, skill, and intuition. Being a Highly Sensitive Person myself, I can offer a high degree of empathy and attunement. I hold space for your experience, and I offer gentle challenges when needed in order to help you find a way through.

  7. A holistic approach: integration of body, mind and emotional experience to facilitate self-knowledge and emotional regulation.

Therapy in Context

An important guiding principle of my practice is to consider how social and environmental factors may affect my clients’ experiences.

I believe working with inner processes and emotional experiences needs to come with knowledge about the lived reality of people, in regards to social class, race, ethnicity, gender, etc., and its impact on mental health and potential to thrive.

I am thus committed to learning about forms of injustice to help my clients examine the impact they might have

on their lives and what needs have remained unfulfilled from this. Therapy can also help with establishing resistance strategies and self-care in this context. I have helped clients do this, and I am now preparing to undertake research in this area.

I have delivered training for organisations and therapists on the topic of anti-racism and anti-oppression through my work as a consultant and as a member of the Radical Therapy Network. I regularly write on decolonial perspectives of mental health in my blog South of Therapy.