Welcome

Therapy & counselling for adults, young people and children: compassionate, client-led approach combined with evidence-based interventions, with a focus on neuroaffirmative support. Online and in-person in Basel, Switzerland. English, French, Spanish, German.

gpk-registered art therapist

EMDR therapy

somatic therapy

My approach

The main focus of my practice is neuroaffirmative therapy approaches for young people and adults. I am neurodivergent (ADHD/autistic), and I have additional experience and interest in supporting ADHD/AuDHD, autistic and/or PDA individuals who have experience of complex trauma, addiction and/or medically unexplained symptoms and/or giftedness.

My theoretical orientation is person-centred/humanistic, systemic, neurodivergent-informed and phenomenological (experience-focused) in the context of an embodied/somatic approach. I am a Swiss-registered art therapist (gpk dance/movement therapy) and am trained in EMDR (Institute of Creative Mindfulness, Level 1 and 2), body-oriented therapy approaches as well as a parts-work based model of therapeutic coaching. I am also a psychomotor therapist in training (Psychomotorik - the predominate method on offer in Switzerland for neurodivergent young people in the context of education).

All trained/registered art therapists work with a wide range of issues. We work collaboratively on what is important to you (or your young person); whether you have clear therapy goals from the outset or whether this emerges as part of the therapy process.

Whether you have a clear idea of what you would like to work on or a general sense of wanting a safe and supportive space in your life, you are welcome to contact me to see whether working with me would feel like a fit for you.

Therapy is an evolving field and I love to stay open and curious to learning supportive approaches. You can see more about my formal qualifications, along with the different approaches that influence how I think about therapy (and life in general) at the bottom of this page.

You can contact me here to set up a time for an initial conversation or a first appointment.

What is…?

Neurodivergence informed therapy

  • is a term coined by autistic researchers Monique Botha and Robert Chapman in their seminal 2022 paper

  • does NOT aim to “treat” or ‘cure’ neurodivergence

  • emphasises the importance of neurodivergent acceptance and pride

  • understands dysfunction to be relational, and not the ‘fault’ of an individual

  • requires therapists to cultivate humility around different experiences of neurodivergence and disablement

  • is not focused on working on goals determined by external agencies (such as schools) but on identifying and working with what is most meaningful/helpful for clients

Body-oriented therapy

  • is an umbrella term for therapeutic approaches covering a wide range of skills and interventions (Röhricht, 2009)

  • is therapy like any other kind of therapy whose basis is a relationship of trust between therapist and client, confidentiality and safety

  • can be an effective means to work with conflicting, dissociated or painful parts of the self (physical, mental, emotional, psychological, social or spiritual)

  • is drawn from different fields, such as body psychotherapy, dance movement psychotherapy/therapy, sensorimotor therapy and psychomotor therapy (Papadopoulos, N. et al., 2018)

  • does not require any prior movement experience or ability and is not a form of class or exercise with any form of evaluation or any competitive element

  • is applied in individual and group settings and supports people experiencing a wide variety of issues, from anxiety and burnout to medically unexplained symptoms and psychosis.

    Dance movement therapy

  • is one of a number of creative arts therapies, like art therapy, drama therapy or music therapy

  • is especially useful as a form of repair after trauma along with other creative arts therapies

  • often increases self-compassion, playfulness, comfort and ‘enlivenment’ (quite literally the sense of being alive), all of which often leave us after difficult experiences (Malchiodi)

  • uses verbal, sensory and creative experiences to resource the self and increase capacity

  • can be helpful to decrease/tolerate/relate to sensations of extreme distress

  • .is an effective way to understand and increase connection between the different ‘parts’ or aspects of ourselves or our psyches

  • often support people to access their own inner wisdom, restore bodily autonomy and connection to creative intelligence and intuition (Caldwell, Gray)

  • intersects art and science and creative arts and somatic therapies (Tantia, 2013; Payne et al., 2016)

  • has a research base including Cochrane reviews (the highest available standard for evidence-based therapy) and is indicated as a go-to therapy in guidelines from national health authorities in some countries (such as Germany and the UK)

  • has a theoretical, cultural and artistic heritage, with its therapeutic action explained by reference to a number of different models including those derived from verbal psychotherapy (Johnson, 1998 and Koch)

  • is compatible with approaches to therapy that are intersectional and culturally respectful.

    EMDR (‘Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing’)

  • was started in 1987 by the psychologist Dr Francine Shapiro, who noticed she felt calmer when she processed a difficult experience while looking at trees and walking around a lake

  • draws on older indigenous and healing practices that used different forms of bilateral stimulation, such as drumming and dancing

  • has 8-phases and is a complete approach of therapy

  • is a method for working with trauma using bilateral movements (usually tracking eye movements)

  • also incorporates elements such as storytelling, mindfulness, creativity, meaning-making and silence

  • was originally used for single incident trauma (eg the aftermath of a car crash)

  • is applied today in wider contexts, including to support people with complex trauma and addiction

  • is compatible with approaches to therapy that are intersectional and culturally respectful

  • has been empirically tested in several areas.

Image: a photo of gold and pale blue silk pattern

Qualifications

These are my “pieces of paper” - formal training and accreditations. Below this you can find other modalities that I have experienced personally and/or trained in that also influence my approach to therapy and life.

  • Kunsttherapeutin gpk (accredited creative arts therapist with the Swiss professional associations for creative arts therapists, the gpk Fachverband für Kunsttherapie)

  • EMDR trained with the Institute for Creative Mindfulness, an EMDRIA-approved institute

  • MA Dance and Movement Therapy (SRH Hochschule Heidelberg) (award for highest achievement, nomination for research award) 

  • Post-graduate Diploma Dance and Movement Therapy (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) (Distinction)

  • Psychomotorik Therapy (ongoing) (Interkantonale Hochschule für Heilpädagogik (HfH) Zürich) 

  • ICF Parent Coaching

  • Authorized practitioner Moving Cycle (body psychotherapy training for addiction, dissociation & trauma (Moving Cycle) 

  • Dance and yoga training (Royal Academy of Dance, Laban, Profitanz Basel, aKar, Mophatong, parent/child dance contact provisation/dance, 200 hr yoga, yoga for addiction recovery)

  • Solicitor of England and Wales, Postgraduate Legal Practice Course (BPP School of Law), Postgraduate Diploma in Law (BPP School of Law)

  • MA Spanish and French (Social Anthropology minor) (University of Edinburgh)

Influences

My approach to therapy is also influenced by the modalities below, which I have either experienced personally or trained in:

 

. . . it becomes necessary to understand the lived experience of the body in the world as never politically neutral

- Professor Rae Johnson

  • Survivor/professional Carolyn Spring uses lived experience and training to deliver online and in-person training to survivors and professionals on recovering from abuse, shame, suicidal ideation/behaviour and trauma (including DID).

  • Encounter-centered Couples Transformation® is an integrative and interdisciplinary model for relationship building created by Hedy Schleifer. Its approach incorporates the philosophy of Martin Buber, Imago relationship theory, Appreciative Inquiry and relational neurobiology.

    For Hedy “relational intelligence puts partners on the path to relational maturity and is at the core of having successful relationships both personally and professionally.”

    https://www.terrywein.com/therapy

  • Drawing on my work with survivors of torture and ill-treatment at Amnesty International, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and elsewhere, and the work of Dance Movement Therapy pioneers Dr Amber Gray and Dr Kim Dunphy, who have defined this model in recent years. Human Rights Therapy is informed by the experiences of survivors of torture and mass human rights violations and transitional justice, and other fields at the intersection of healing and justice that value the healing, cultural and political benefits of survivor-affirmative testimonial practice. Human Rights Therapy does not separate counselling and psychotherapy from advocacy. It calls for therapists to be informed about the legal, economic and political realities facing their clients and for awareness of the client’s orientation, culture and values, and therapist’s own bias, towards ego-centric or socio-centric models of self and being. It critically examines power within and outside the therapeutic relationship.

  • Polyvagal-informed Dance/Movement Therapy is the approach developed by Dr Amber Gray, the dance therapist who has collaborated, shared ideas with and taught with Professor Stephen Porges for many years.

    For Amber, “Polyvagal-informed DMT is a humanitarian approach based on the universality of our physiology to working with dance, movement and rhythm that is helpful for children and adults, as well as individual and group psychotherapy or work. The core of this work is breath, sound, and movement as a direct access to regulate the nervous system following traumatic exposure. …”

    In Restorative Movement Psychotherapy (RMP), Dr Gray integrates “Polyvagal Theory, movement as primary language, dance as creative expression, with mindfulness and arts based therapies. This holistic approach focuses on the creative process and embodiment as focal to the restorative process. This psychotherapeutic practice does not focus solely on somatic awareness or theory; the contemplative and indigenous influences enhance clinical intuition, deep listening, embodiment and creativity in therapeutic and healing practices. RMP does not shy away from the power of the human spirit in healing.”

  • For Maria Rivera, "… Afro-Caribbean dance provides access to four levels of empowerment: The Self-Body Power, The Collective Power, The Socio-Political Power, and the Spiritual Power... Within Afro-Caribbean dance traditions, symbolic imagery is evoked by the embodiment of forces of nature, or themes of struggle, revolution, liberation, pride, and celebration... By making the commitment to understand how social and political systems influence our clients’ life, then we begin advocating for a culture of visibility, inclusion, and equality." - Maria E. Rivera, MS, MA, BC-DMT, LCAT

    My personal experience of Afro-Caribbean healing dance comes from living and working in Kingston, Johannesburg and South London.

  • Lundy Bancroft on domestic violence and abuse

    The Freedom programme

    Jude Mills, Helen Knowles, and the Conspirituality Podcast on spiritual abuse.

  • Jenny Pearson, a Jungian psychoanalytic psychotherapist trained in the Sesame method for Jungian drama therapy.

    Patricia de Young’s pioneering work on understanding and treating chronic shame.

  • ‘Parts’ work is an approach that includes Internal Family Systems (Richard Schwartz), Gestalt therapy (Fritz Perls), and the Structural Dissociation Model for clients with dissociative disorders and post traumatic stress. It seeks, in different ways, to uncover and address conflicts between different ‘parts’ if you; the part that wishes to heal, for example, and that which feels stuck and unable to change. Experienced and trained with Leslie Potter for application in the context of parenting.

  • Professor Sabine Koch, foremost DMT scholar researching phenomenological approaches to embodiment and serious mental illness, in collaboration with Professor Thomas Fuchs.

    The Moving Cycle originated from award-winning author and founder of the somatic psychotherapy department at Naropa University, Professor Christine Caldwell. It is a body psychotherapy approach that originated from Professor Caldwell’s intuition of the need to find more effective ways to approach, and work with, those hospitalised for serious mental illness, that is based on her premise that supporting the body’s natural adaptive movement promotes healing. As such, the role of the therapist is to act as midwife, to support the restoration of the client’s bodily authority.

    Gendlin & felt sense experiencing

    Core Process Psychotherapy

  • adrienne maree brown - the work of Black feminist author, doula and activist emphasises the importance of drawing on emotional and erotic energy, hope and love to challenge oppression and despair.

    The Nap Ministry - Tricia Hersey’s work on rest as a spiritual and social justice practice, and a form of reparations for Black women, based on the principles of Black Liberation Theology, Afrofuturism, Womanism, somatics, and communal care.

  • Pat Ogden’s method for working with the body’s natural intelligence.

  • Dr Peter Schindler

  • Bria Campbell’s approach using experiential learning and DMT to work with PTSS (Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome).

    Guilaine Kinouani and Race Reflections.

    Radical Therapist Network

    Gillian Schutte

    Resmaa Menakem, who created somatic abolitionism as an individual and collective practice to dismantle white supremacy and racism.

  • Professor Christine Caldwell and Professor Rae Johnson is a scholar and therapist at the forefront of embodiment and social justice action. They have researched everyday embodied experiences of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism. Their models for research and practice incorporate the lived experience of the body and focus on learning.

 
 

  • Theravada and Emoyeni Retreat Centre. Rolf Gates.

  • NARM is a model for understanding attachment, relational and developmental trauma.

    Allan Schore, Daniel Stern (vitality affects), Daniel Siegel, Ed Tronick, Sue Johnson.

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  • All dancers I have trained, worked, created and performed with (release, Cunningham, Limon, Horton, ballet, dancehall, flamenco, salsa, tango, Hip Hop, jazz). Gratitude to all, especially Jorge Garcia Perez, Catherine Habasque, Chris Lechner, Eve Neeracher, Kevin Richmond, Marc Rosenkranz, Stuart Thomas.

  • Dr Cathy Malchiodi

    Shaun McNiff (arts-based research) - see ‘How art heals: integrating practice and research’.

    Dr Jennifer Tantia

    Eve Neeracher

  • Those questioning and naming iatrogenic trauma and diagnosis and asking us to question our current understanding of mental distress.

    Dr Jay Watts on EUPD/BPD.

    Dr Ahmed Hankir on Muslim mental healthcare, dual identities and lived experience within mental health care.

    Power meaning threat framework.

  • Pete Wharmy, autistic speaker and writer

    Association of neurodivergent therapists ANDT

    Neurodivergent rebel

    Dr Ed Hallowell

 
 

Wisdom and awareness is a collective experience. It is not a unitary experience.

— Maura Sills

Working Together