If you want to feel more connected to your body, move past trauma and be in the world with confidence and ease, this could be the space for you.

If you wish you could express yourself and feel alive, but your feelings are overwhelming you, or you have lost contact with them altogether, then I can work with this.

Read on to find out more about trauma-informed 1-1 psychotherapy, or click here for: Clinical Supervision

My name is Anna. I’m a psychotherapist and I work primarily through dance and movement; creativity and the body; image, metaphor and ritual.

This way of working can be inspiring for some, daunting for others. That is why I move at your pace, following your own process and timing.

There are no expectations for you to be anything other than yourself, as you find yourself on any given day.

The good news is that you have all you need inside you to build a better life. I know this from my own experience and from guiding many others.

 

How can Dance/Movement Therapy help with my mental health?

Our mind is our whole body. Have you ever felt panic or worry as a tightening in your chest? Or experienced feeling depressed as if your whole body was weighted and drooping to the ground?  

We are all walking stories; our joyful memories and traumatic experiences alike are held in our body memory. Struggling with our mental health can make us feel stuck, unable to move forward.

Research in neuroscience, psychology and the arts tells us that Working with the body and movement invites your whole self to be present and self, in aids us in the processes of integration, change and renewal.  

Dance/movement psychotherapy supports you to tell your story; explore the traumas held in your body safely; and creatively explore your relationship with yourself and your feelings.

 

Working with the body

Considering working with our bodies or with dance and creativity can bring up all kinds of fears and anxieties.

This is completely normal.

Perhaps we cannot bear to be in our bodies; we put ourselves down and criticise the way we look and feel.

Maybe we feel dissociative or disconnected because of traumas we have experienced, and the idea of moving feels scary.

Perhaps there is a pull in our bones towards a creative path, but we have been told we aren’t good enough, or we can’t get past judging what we do.

As a Dance/Movement Psychotherapist, I offer you time and space to bring all these experiences safely into the open. 

We will go gently, starting the work well inside your comfort zone.

 

Pathways into the work

Each person’s experience of therapy is unique.

For some, movement work may take time to get used to. We may work first with creative image cards, objects, pens and paper, building a bridge between our inner experience and the outer world.

We will work with breath and interoception (the ability to tune in and sense what is going on inside of us) throughout all systems of the body.

We may engage in creative bodymapping to externalise and map out what we are experiencing.

For others, you. may be drawn directly to the art form of dance itself, as a vehicle of self-regulation, self-expression and vitality.

We will work with improvisation, rhythm, space, music, imagination and our sensing body to explore what we need to.

The work fuses the healing properties of dance, which have existed through the millennia, with contemporary psychotherapeutic research, theory and practice.

 

Discovering a new language

Whatever path we take, talking and verbal reflection have a valuable place in dance/movement psychotherapy. 

But you will discover that you do not only speak your native language.

Your body also speaks in sensation and feeling, image and story, sound and poetry, dance and movement. A creative language full of colour.

Attending to the wisdom of your body allows you to follow your gut instincts, feel in your bones, get to the heart of the matter.

This language feeds into your talking reflections, bringing new insights and understanding, as well as a sense of having expressed something deeply meaningful about who you are and how you feel, in any given moment.

 

Specialist and Trauma-informed

My work is trauma-informed, meaning I am aware that the body may hold triggering experiences, emotions and memories and I work safely with this.

I have worked with people from many diverse backgrounds and ages. I have particular experience working with:

• stress and anxiety;
• depression;
• trauma;
• flashbacks and intrusive thoughts;
• domestic abuse;
• sexual abuse;
• dissociation;
• body image and confidence;
• relationships;
• loneliness and social isolation.

My belief is that movement and creativity can offer healing into all types of situations; if you want to work on something specific, please contact me and we can talk about what you are bringing.

If you choose to contact me for 1-1 sessions, we will give time to understanding our expectations and whether we believe we can work together.

I am currently able to offer therapy in English and Portuguese. 

I offer a free half hour consultation via phone call or Zoom.

CLICK HERE TO CONTACT ME