Introduction
Psychotherapy in Parliament Hill Fields, Camden
Hello and welcome. I am a psychotherapist working in Camden, in Parliament Hill Fields close to Hampstead Heath and Kentish Town. Below is some information that I hope may be helpful in case you are looking for a therapist.
Having a good and trusting relationship with your therapist is important if you are to have a good experience in therapy. I offer free initial online consultations where we can consider your needs and explore how it feels for us to work together.
Good therapy can help you come more into relationship with all of your experience, including those parts that do not feel ok and are hard to be with. In so doing you can learn to trust your heart more. For more information on the type therapy I practice, Core Process Psychotherapy, see below.
The space I offer is held with warmth and positive regard where all of your experience is welcome.
To book an initial online consultation or to ask me any questions click here.
Core Process Psychotherapy
Core Process Psychotherapy is an integrative and body oriented form of psychotherapy. It draws on psychodynamic and analytic perspectives in terms of considering how you have been shaped by early experiences in life. It includes Buddhist perspectives on the body-mind and how this can help you come into relationship with the challenges you face in therapy. It is a form of therapy that can facilitate deep healing and transformational change.
For more information click here.
About me
UKCP Registered
I am a psychotherapist registered with the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). I am fully insured and receive clinical supervision on all my work.
Style of Therapy
As a therapist I am interested in supporting clients to come more into relationship to their hearts, to trusting their feelings more, become clearer about their needs and to find deeper connection to self and others in relationships. I work with a wide range of issues as a therapist, feel free to contact me for more information.
Background
My last career was in children and families social work in which I worked for over fifteen years. This work offered me experience that supports my work as a psychotherapist.
I have an interest in languages and community work and have lived in both India and France. I hold a BA in Hindi from the School of Oriental and African Studies and an MA in Social Work and MA in Mindfulness Based Psychotherapy from the Karuna Institute, Devon. I have a long standing meditation practice, and have a diverse range of interests including writing, travel and music.
My location
Sessions take place at my flat in Parliament Hill Fields, close to Hampstead Heath and just off Highgate Road, close to the stations of Kentish Town, Gospel Oak and Tufnell Park, Camden.
In addition to providing face-to-face therapy, I also offer online and telephone sessions.
Fees & availability
Cost per session is £70. Sessions last one hour.
As well as in person sessions I also offer online and telephone sessions.
I offer free initial online consultations. Feel free to book one or get in touch to arrange a chat by phone.
Get in touch
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
An initial consultation can support you to explore the reasons for coming to therapy and and get a feeling for how it may be for us to work together.
You can also call me or email me direct at info@alanstoddart.com.
Why psychotherapy?
Space to explore your feelings
It is not always easy to find permission for what you may be feeling. Depression and anxiety, relationship problems, addictions, coping with loss and trauma, self limiting patterns – all these can leave you feeling isolated and alone with nowhere to turn.
A unique relationship
Psychotherapy offers a relationship where you can explore what may not feel possible in other relationships. Warmth and compassion, and safety and authenticity are therefore important. It is a means for self growth, empowerment and finding increased happiness in life.
The right support
A good therapist will point out areas where you are stuck, help you to deepen in your work and support you in reclaiming parts of yourself you may have denied due to defences from childhood and other difficult experiences.
New ways of relating
With skill, a therapist can hold the vulnerable and denied parts of you in the relationship, allowing new ways of relating to your experience to arise that lead you to face your suffering and move forward having healed, with increased understanding and purpose.
Why explore suffering?
By exploring your suffering in relationship, you can let go of feelings of shame and repressed feelings that lead you to feel not good enough for life, thereby opening up new energy in your body to create the life you long for. You can also heal your pains and trauma, not only through speaking of your difficulties but in feeling this in your body and so allowing these energies to express themselves and so transform and heal.
Core Process Psychotherapy
Aspects
Core Process Psychotherapy is an in depth, longer term form of psychotherapy. It is:
Relational
The therapist brings a sense of warmth and compassion to the sessions. Safety and authenticity are important. The therapist is impacted by what you bring and journeys with you at every stage of the therapy.
Body Oriented
Safety and attunement to your needs is reinforced by the grounded presence of the therapist through awareness of the body, and a deepening of embodied experience. In CPP there is the option to orientate to the body and work with your arising experience in this way.
Integrative
CPP draws on different traditions of therapy. This includes Western psychodynamic theories such as analytic theory and attachment theory, and Buddhist understanding relating to the nature of ‘bodymind’.
Transpersonal
CPP is considered a transpersonal psychotherapy, where working with the imagination, symbols, use of dreams, archetypes and ancestral work can support your work undertaken in therapy.
Connected to wellbeing
Helping you to access a renewed sense of wellbeing is central to Core Process Psychotherapy.
The term ‘Core’ in ‘Core Process’ refers to a natural state of wellbeing we feel in the present moment and is at the heart of the work I do as a therapist. We experience this in deep sleep. In relationship, access to this state can be deeply healing.
Modern science and eastern wisdom
There is increasing crossover between neuroscience and Buddhist thinking in the understanding of human behaviour. Research has shown three elements support good outcomes in therapy: i. The therapist creating a sense of safety in the therapy, ii. The grounded presence of the therapist and iii. Supporting the client to bring their issues into the present moment. For more information see the Links page.
Links
The Karuna Institute, founded by Maura and Franklyn Sills in 1984, is an international residential training and retreat centre that offers UKCP accredited psychotherapy training grounded in mindfulness practice.
www.karuna-institute.co.uk/core-process-psychotherapy.html
The UK Council for Psychotherapists website (UKCP). The leading organisation for the education, training, accreditation and regulation of psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors in the UK.
The Association of Core-Process Psychotherapists (ACPP) is the professional association of psychotherapists trained at the Karuna Institute.
Research providing evidence that therapeutic presence, safety and orientation of the client to their present experience supports good therapeutic outcomes in therapy.
psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-37846-003
A mindfulness teacher who provides guided meditations and reflections on her website, including techniques which support developing awareness in day to day life.