Naomi Stafford

I currently only have capacity for online clients. I have spaces available on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Mornings and early afternoons. 

Hello.

I am a trauma-informed counsellor and I offer a warm, friendly, and non-judgemental space for you to be fully you and talk about what you want and need to.  To do this we may explore events and relationships throughout your history as this can sometimes illuminate experiences in the present but with a firm grounding in the here and now. 

My humanistic integrative training means I draw from person centred, psychodynamic and Gestalt models as part of a relational framework. What this means in practice:

Bricks and Mortar: Paramount to my work is creating a relationship which is experienced as safe and I do this with this using of empathy, unconditional respect and integrity.

Foundations: I believe our thoughts, patterns, behaviours and relationships are shaped by early relational experiences in childhood.  We are relational beings. We are shaped in relationship, and therefore we can heal in relationship.

The Whole House: All we have is this moment now, in relation to one another, and in it contains our entire bodies, thoughts, sensations, impulses and urges.   

For me, therapy is not about fixing. It is about feeling. It’s about harnessing enough self-awareness that we are able to liberate ourselves from that which feels beyond our control. It is about processing and finding peace with that which we cannot or will not change. It is about being met with compassion so that we can learn to meet our whole selves with that same compassion.

Weekly sessions of 50minutes

I offer online (Zoom) or in-person sessions in East Dulwich.

We will spend the first couple of sessions taking a brief history, what brings you to therapy, and what your expectations are. 

I will then regularly check in with you, every six weeks or so, to ensure we are staying on track with your focus for therapy and see what you are finding useful and what you might like more of from our sessions. Of course this may change as we work together. 

I usually work with an open-ended time frame and am led by the work we do together but if for any reason you would prefer to work in blocks of 12 sessions with a review at the end of each block to discuss continuing, I am very happy to work within this structure. This can be discussed in our intro session and contracted at the beginning of our work. 

I offer a free intro call where we can explore in brief what you expect from therapy and what brings you here. This will take about 15-20minutes. 

Our first couple of sessions will explore this in more detail as well as an opportunity for me to take a history and establish your focus and expectations from therapy.