Ithaca Psychotherapy and counselling

• EMDR
• Somatic Experiencing
• CBT
• ACT
• IFS
• Person-Centred
• Exposure Therapy
• Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) Therapy
• Mindfulness

Anxiety is a fear response. Something, maybe something that doesn’t seem to make much rational sense, is frightening you. Your nervous system is responding in a way it believes will keep you safe. Developing an understanding of this response, your relationship to anxiety, and using these things to your advantage is fundamental to the way I work with anxiety disorders. Anxiety wants to continue to shrink your world, it will always tell you there is something else to be afraid of. Using a combination of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Somatic Experiencing (SE), and exposure therapy we can take ground back from anxiety and help you to get back to the life you value.

Traumatized people have nervous systems that are trapped in the past. They often respond to the present moment as if the terrible things that happened to them are still happening, as if the threat is here, now. Fortunately, the rule in nature, and in our human nature, is recovery from trauma, not perpetual suffering from it. Using Dr. Peter Levine’s ground-breaking Somatic Experiencing (SE) approach to trauma and/or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) we will work through the responses your body and nervous system have had to the traumatic events in your life. There is a way back to life in the present moment, let’s do the difficult work it takes to get there.

Addiction often begins as a coping strategy to solve a problem. When you first began your addictive behaviour it probably provided a much needed sense of relief from pain and/or anxiety. It probably felt like things were not quite right with you or the world. And then, with your drug of choice or addictive behaviour, those things finally felt like they were okay. What job has your addiction been doing for you? What has it been helping you to avoid? Using my experience in residential addiction treatment, a combination of tried and tested recovery principles, Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) we can develop a better understanding of your addiction and set you firmly on the road to recovery.

Sometimes we shut down to defend ourselves. Our nervous systems can only take so much, and withdrawal from the world and ourselves is one of the ways we keep ourselves safe when things become too much to handle. The author Andrew Solomon says: “The opposite of depression is not happiness, the opposite of depression is vitality.” Depression saps us of our energy and drains the world of its colour. Using a combination of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and the exciting developments in Polyvagal Theory we will work to slowly challenge and reactivate your nervous system. Depression can be a brutal experience, lets travel together and find the way back to vitality. 

OCD is a disorder of disturbing, obsessive, intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviours that the sufferer engages in to try and relieve the intense anxiety that their thoughts create. Education about OCD, even among mental health professionals, is sorely lacking and, as a result, it takes an average of 17 years from the onset of symptoms before diagnosis. In addition to this some types of OCD, called “Pure OCD”, involve mental rather than behavioural compulsions, and without observable behaviours the disorder can be particularly difficult to diagnose. One of the reasons this is so important is because many types of traditional therapy can make OCD worse. The gold standard therapy for OCD is ERP, or Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy. Using ERP Therapy I will help you to experience the relief that comes with gaining the upper hand on your fears.