Catherine Bishop
Integrative and Transpersonal Psychotherapeutic Counsellor UKCP reg.
I offer a holistic and creative approach to counselling and psychotherapy, and specialise in working with women at thresholds in their lives. Building a trusting relationship in which you feel able to explore whatever you wish is an important part of the work.
As an experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor, I combine a range of approaches tailored to your needs. Alongside talking, you can choose to work with art materials, image, metaphor and dreams, movement, as a way to express things that lie beyond words, as well as archetypal stories and creative writing. No expertise is required to work in this way.
I also work with bringing compassionate awareness to the wisdom of the body, to explore stored memories and tensions that are ready to be released or support finding a sense of calm. I work with women in between stories, in the unknown and sometimes disorienting place between who you were and who you might be. I work with feelings and dilemmas that arise at times of change, such as menopause, empty nest, loss, childlessness not by choice, changing relationships, a new job or redundancy. This includes a search for meaning, purpose and identity, looking to fulfil your potential or live more creatively and working with trauma, sexuality and spirituality.
We would work with and look beneath symptoms such as anxiety, depression, stuckness, confusion, low self esteem, self sabotage, perfectionism, inner conflicts and repeating patterns to understand what they might be communicating and what is seeking to emerge. We can also work with reclaiming parts that you had to bury or abandon in order to survive and are ready to see the light of day: your voice, instinct, and inner authority.
Working somatically with parts of self can help reconnect the bodymind and release energy that has been used for protection, contributing to a greater sense of freedom, aliveness, choice, direction, healthy boundaries and self-compassion. I offer warmth, acceptance and a non-judgemental, confidential space to explore who you are, what you long for and how to make the changes you want in your life.
Short term work provides the opportunity to focus on specific difficulties or crises in the present; long term work offers the opportunity for a deeper exploration of issues which may have their roots in the past. As therapy is 50 minutes weekly, I may suggest activities to support the work in between, such as journalling, short somatic or mindfulness excercises.
Training and Experience
My core training is in Psychosynthesis, which combines eastern and western approaches to psychotherapy. Since then I have completed further trainings and draw on ideas from: Gestalt, the work of Jung, use of the arts, neuroscience, somatic awareness, embodied parts work, IFS, Attachment Theory and Object Relations, family constellations, therapeutic creative writing, shadow work. I have a background in education and have worked as a therapist since 2010. I bring to the work a love of the arts and belief in the healing power of creativity and nature.
Online and/or telephone appointments are available.
