Have you been wondering about counselling or therapy?
Does your worry, anxiety and stress sometimes feel overwhelming?
Worry, anxiety and stress can make you feel overwhelmed and strangely lonely. There’s a mixed-up knot of worry inside you. And to make matters worse, you may feel you have no reason to be feeling this way.
You tell yourself you ought to be grateful, and that you should learn to be content with how things are. You feel cross with yourself for not being able to simply enjoy life and be happy with how things are.
Integrative Arts Psychotherapy and AEDP might be exactly what you need.
Meeting online once a week, we begin together to make sense of your life. Together we figure out what’s been missing, and how you can feel whole again. You can begin to get glimpses of the loveable inner spark that you feared was lost. Things that had felt very knotted-up and stuck, may start to get clearer and more orderly in your mind and heart. Integrative Arts Psychotherapy and AEDP aren’t something that’s ‘done to you’; instead, we work in partnership.
As an Integrative Arts Psychotherapist, and an AEDP therapist, I help you to help yourself. Here’s how:
- Deeply listening to you on many different levels.
- Helping you develop skills and techniques so you can calm your nervous system more effectively.
- Helping you get in touch with your feelings in a gentle way that feels safe, understood, and manageable.
- Helping you to piece together your life story, so that it makes sense, and stops being such a jumbled mix of feelings, odd memories and worrying thoughts.
- Helping you compassionately integrate the aspects of you that you always felt were shameful and too difficult to accept or understand.
- Helping you to connect to your own creativity and discover that you too are a creative person.
- Providing a confidential, non-judgemental, accepting relationship that has clear boundaries and enables you to feel safe and understood.
- Holding the space for you to gradually figure out what ‘being yourself’ actually means.
Therapy may help you connect with your own deep-down sense of meaning and self-acceptance.
If you are interested in online therapy, you can read more here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do sessions take place?
Sessions take place online, via Zoom. Most clients prefer to use video, but it’s worth knowing that there are other options (and I’m trained and experienced in them all): Audio, Live Chat (via Zoom), or Email (via a secure service). For in-person work, my consulting room is in a quiet area in Wivenhoe, near Colchester, U.K.
What is AEDP?
AEDP stands for Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy. It’s a kind of talk therapy in which you get help with your emotions. If an emotion starts to come up in a session I may ask if we can slow down and make space to feel whatever’s coming up. This is done in a graded way so that it doesn’t feel too overwhelming so you can feel better and clearer about things. AEDP is a very relational kind of therapy, which means that in a session I’ll sometimes ask about how you feel we’re doing together, and whether it feels like I am understanding you. AEDP is an experiential kind of therapy, which means that I may sometimes want to check in with you about how you are feeling in this moment, even if you’re telling me about something that happened last week (or in your childhood). You can read more about AEDP here.
What happens in Integrative Arts Psychotherapy sessions?
We sit and talk together. And I guide you to try things out: techniques for calming and de-stressing, meditations and visualisations, creative imagination exercises. We might add in arts materials such as felt-tips/pastels/crayon, sand-tray, puppets, paints, clay, play-dough, collage, poetry-writing, and postcards. Most of all, Integrative Arts Psychotherapy and AEDP are about the wonderful, positive transformations that can happen in your brain and nervous system when you truly ‘feel felt’.
You can read more about Art Therapy here.
You can read more about AEDP here.
You can read more about Trauma Therapy here.
Is it a kind of counselling?
Yes. You might call it ‘counselling plus’: AEDP and Integrative Arts Psychotherapy allows us more options to go both wider and deeper.
How much does therapy cost?
My fee for a standard 50-minute session is £90. Some phases of EMDR treatment require longer sessions, and the fee for this is higher.
How many therapy or counselling sessions will I need?
It really depends on what you are looking for, and what difficulties you’re bringing. Most people will start with one session per week for six weeks, and then we will reassess and decide whether to continue. And yes, after this, most of my clients find they then choose to work longer term, which could be for six months, a couple of years, or longer. It depends what’s needed, and what each client wants.
Do I have to be good at art?
No! This is not about being ‘good at art’. The arts are a powerful channel to help you access the wisdom and lived experience held in your whole brain (and body). Artistic skill does not make this process any more (or any less) effective. Art Psychotherapy is completely different to an art lesson! We’re not interested in judging artwork. You and I together just enquire and get gently, respectfully curious, knowing that your creativity can open a precious window into your deeper self.
Is there a guarantee that Integrative Arts Psychotherapy, AEDP, or EMDR will help me?
I’m afraid not. No single type of therapy, and no single therapist or counsellor, can be ideal for all clients and their needs. Integrative Arts Psychotherapy, AEDP, or EMDR, may – or may not – be a great fit for you. But my hunch is, that if you’ve read some of the stuff on my website, and if you feel like it ‘speaks’ to you, then you are likely to be able to benefit from working with me.
I’m really interested. When would I be able to start?
The first step is to find out if I am the best therapist for you, or if another therapist might actually be a better fit for what you need. So first, we’d need to schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation. After that, if we both feel that we would like to try an initial assessment session, we can then schedule a time to meet online or in my consulting room near Colchester, Essex CO7. The assessment session is a chance to get more of a feel for what’s needed, and to decide if you and I feel we can work well together. An assessment session costs the same as a normal session.
Do you work online by video, email, live chat or phone?
Yes. I have a Diploma in Online Therapy, which means that I am specifically trained to work online.
You can read more about online therapy here.
Do you offer short-term trauma treatment for PTSD?
I am now EMDR-trained, and can offer EMDR treatment for clients with single-incident trauma and PTSD. EMDR is in the NICE guidelines as the recommended treatment for trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. For some people, EMDR treatment can be extremely effective in processing trauma and clearing PTSD. Please email me at espcameron[at]protonmail.com if you are interested in finding out more about whether EMDR might be suitable for you. However I am not offering EMDR online, so at the moment (during the pandemic) you would need to look elsewhere for EMDR treatment.
Useful links:
Your First Counselling Session: 12 Things You Need to Know
How to Get the Most out of Your Therapy or Counselling
Creative Solutions for Dealing with Difficult Thoughts
Emotions – 17 things You Need to Know About Your Feelings
Trauma Therapy Has Changed – Here’s How
* Restrictions operate regarding UK therapists working online with people residing in certain other countries; if you live outside the U.K. and need more information about this, please ask.