Audrey’s Approach
“I consider myself a brain and body wise therapist and absolutely love the work that I do. I approach each new client with sensitivity, openness, appreciation, curiosity, and compassion, and seek to help you learn to approach yourself in a similar manner.”
Become Unstuck
When I began working with clients suffering from complex and developmental trauma, I noticed that people didn’t just speak about their trauma, their bodies spoke as well. In certain clients, I learnt to recognise the same subtle movement would be evident before they spoke about a certain person - such that I would come to know before they brought something up, who they were going to be speaking about. Some clients developed a posture that screamed about what they were going through as soon as they came in the room. Other clients felt stuck emotionally and their body language seemed to echo that stickiness.
It became clear to me that working holistically was the only way to support people in their move towards transformation and healing. I began to do more study and training into physiology, body oriented therapies and neuroscience, and started researching exercise, meditation and mindfulness.
While talking and listening are still the core way I work with my clients, I sometimes encourage clients to move in the session if it feels right to them. I often encourage particular movements to try out, and at times I have suggested a few walking sessions which I found particularly impactful for some men. One of the major shifts for my clients comes from the recognition that everything they think or have experienced, is connected to every part of their life. They come to respect their emotional health as just as important as their physical health.
Clients become aware of how their minds and their bodies work, for example, an individual may, after a short time working with me, recognise that their tense shoulders are an early warning signal that they aren’t speaking up for themselves, or realise they hold their breath when they are being triggered by old trauma - the possibilities are endless.
My own attention and attunement to my client as an individual “system” - their body, their internal landscape, behaviour and defaults - over time becomes a mode of translation for them. I am always telling clients that everything about them is a communication between parts of themselves - they are constantly in communication with themselves.
When we first meet, I begin to hear the communications that they are shouting and whispering to themselves, and I support them in being able to hear that. I always suggest that therapy, good therapy, is like putting a cast on a broken bone. It holds it steady and puts the bone in the best position for healing, but the cast doesn’t heal the bone. The body does. Without a cast, that bone will heal, it may just heal in a way that doesn’t allow for a full extension of movement, it may become more difficult to do the things you want to do, and to do them without pain.
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Psychotherapy
A long term approach to coping with the mental and physical effects of trauma.
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Couples Therapy
A bold and compassionate approach to the challenges in long term relationships.
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Coaching
The practice of running your life more efficiently, with less stress.