LOCATION: Wilbury Road
AVAILABILITY: Monday evenings, Wednesday am and Thursday daytime
PRICE: £60 per session / £75 per hour for couples
SPECIALISMS:
Trauma
Couples & relationships
Personality conditions
Coping with neurodiversity (dyslexia, autism, bi-polar)
Coping with anger and childhood abuse
Chronic pain
Depression
Grief
Personal loss
Family bereavement
Divorce
Family estrangement
Deep anxiety
Panic attacks
PTSD
Sexual trauma
Severe long-term illness
Work stress
Work/life balance

Training

Phil is an experienced psychodynamic counsellor and psychotherapist with additional training and capabilities for individuals who have experienced different types of in trauma. This also includes Couples who may be experiencing such challenges that then impact their relationship – where the Gottman Couples approach is especially supportive.

He trained at Birkbeck, University of London, completing an M.Sc. in Counselling & Psychotherapy, whilst also working for four, varied, counselling organisations, including an NHS placement. Ongoing post -graduate training includes specialised education in trauma, neurodivergence, chronic pain and personality disorders. Phil is also training in The Gottman Method Couples Therapy and uses the Gottman approach in his couples work.

Approach

Each of us has a unique story and Phil's approach is to help each client uncover their own story whilst working to achieve the change that will help. He aims to connect with, listen to, then deeply understand the client.

Building a strong client/counsellor relationship ensures he establishes a safe space for the client to be able to securely understand and change. Phil uses different approaches depending upon the client's need. Sometimes, experiential techniques may help to bring out the emotional insight within the client and that helps create change. In other situations, the client may need support towards improved self understanding to adjust living patterns or support on how to maximise their own resources and aspirations.

For Couples, Phil uses a Method, which has a structured approach, that encourages and supports the emotional relationship and the ways that couples connect and communicate to each other.

Trauma

Trauma affects more than 30% of the UK population and our understanding of traumatic effects has radically expanded over the last 20 years – as have the methods of changing these negative impacts.

When you experience a traumatic event, your body’s defences take over creating stress responses, which may make you behave very differently, and as well as experiencing more intense emotions and a range of physical effects, trauma can have long term chronic affects both emotionally and physically.

The Body Keeps the Score is the mantra of leading trauma researcher and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk and his work shows how emotional stress often refers back into the body if we do not adequately process the feelings derived from past trauma. Phil can help you understand the impacts of your trauma and intervene in different and holistic ways that can ease and better manage your different emotional and physical states.

Personality disorders

There are many different mood and personality disorders and conditions, some of which get supported well by our healthcare system, however some conditions may not be diagnosed at all nor understood.

In some situations, people do not exhibit all the conditions for a diagnosis of personality disorders yet still need support. 

Personality conditions generate extreme feelings and behaviours that require support so that client is better able to live and work effectively.

Our work together combines understanding from the past with the ability to understand and manage feelings and behaviours in the present.

Phil combines this with a highly supportive and containing counselling approach that helps each client build more confidence and trust that they can manage their life more positively and effectively.

Couples

Phil uses the Gottman method when working with couples and takes you through various stages including a unique assessment which is used to take each couple through the methodical change process that shifts long standing patterns and reduces barriers to communication.

This approach can also be especially helpful to those couples where one or both partners, or their children, may be neurodivergent or where one partner may have experienced childhood trauma or perhaps diagnosed with emotionally based conditions. These complexities add further challenge to the couples relationship. The structured approach that Phil uses, may help the couple step through with greater success.

Other information

Phil has an analytical yet warm approach to therapy. He is trauma informed in his work and is experienced in supporting people with complex life experiences and family backgrounds. He aims to help people gain a deeper understanding of their issues and provide skills to help clients move forward.

Phil works carefully with each client so that they become skilled at understanding themselves and how they react with others as well as with the different parts of their own, unique, personality. This self-understanding then becomes the heart of the next stage, where the client is then supported and guided to better manage their different emotional patterns so that can ultimately lead to improvements in emotional states and in the daily life of the client.

Phil’s articles in expertise and resources