Sonya Gillespie

I’m an integrative therapist with a master’s in psychology and I have a warm and collaborative approach. Together we can work towards empowering you to better understand yourself and your relationships, and to better regulate your emotional wellbeing.

Speaking to a therapist can be very different to speaking to a friend or family member. A good therapist will work with you to explore how you’re feeling and they won’t have preconceived ideas of who you are. They won’t offer their opinion or a quick fix, won’t change the subject to themselves and, most importantly, won’t judge what you say.

You might find that you feel comfortable enough to share thoughts and feelings that you haven’t with anyone else.

It’s a unique experience to spend 50 minutes talking about yourself and the things that are on your mind. So, if your worries and anxiety feel overwhelming, if your low mood is stopping you from living the life you want to, if you feel disconnected from yourself or your relationships, or you feel stuck, stressed, angry or frustrated - or you just need someone to listen to you - then this could be the space you need to start making a change.

Therapy is a gradual process, but when it’s working you might begin to notice changes in how you think about and respond to different situations, and how you understand and feel about yourself, other people and the world around you.

I work with adults of all ages, supporting a wide range of experiences and challenges. These include themes relating to:

Emotional Wellbeing: anxiety, low-mood, emotional overwhelm, stress, anger and frustration…

Self and Identity: overthinking and rumination, loss of confidence, low self-esteem, guilt, lack of purpose and direction…

Life Changes and Relationships: grief and loss, relationship challenges, life transitions, stuckness, living with ill-health…

I’m trauma-informed, have experience working with neurodiversity and all our sessions will be grounded in empathy and compassion.

As an integrative therapist I can draw on different therapeutic models depending on what’s most beneficial in exploring your experiences, and I’ll adapt the way I work to suit you.

Sometimes you might need a more reflective approach to talk something through, or a slower pace to explore something more complex. Other times a more structured approach to work on something specific might be helpful, or perhaps you know you need to be challenged, and we can bring that into our sessions.

I work primarily with person-centred, CBT and psychodynamic approaches…

• humanistic or person-centred therapy allows you the space to speak freely, to explore your feelings and to develop valuable self-awareness and understanding of your authentic self

• using CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) techniques we can consider how your thoughts, emotions and behaviours interact and how your nervous system might be responding to anxiety, stress and overwhelm. We can also look at helpful tools that you can apply in your everyday life to regulate your nervous system and begin changing the thought processes and behaviour patterns that are not serving you well

• using a psychodynamic approach, we can explore where some of your beliefs about yourself and patterns of behaviour might have come from. With that awareness you can begin to understand how they might be affecting you today and how you can make the changes that you want to

I continue to develop my practice through ongoing training and CPD in other theories and models (including ACT and IFS), and these can also form part of our work together. It’s a holistic approach to help you address what you’re struggling with and gain the insight you need to better regulate your emotional wellbeing and improve your psychological flexibility.

I offer a free introductory call of 20 minutes to see if we’d be a good fit to work together, and to give you the opportunity to ask any questions you have about me or the process.

If we do decide to move forwards then I’ll send you my terms and conditions, and a contract and intake form to complete before our first session.

Each session will be 50 minutes and will usually be at the same time each week, by arrangement.

In the first session we’ll start to get to know each other and we’ll talk about your goals for therapy and what you might like to address. We’ll regularly review how the sessions are going and how you’re finding the overall process, and we can make adjustments where necessary. We'll always go at your pace. 

There’s no commitment to a minimum number of sessions. As a guideline, 6 sessions give you time to explore some initial themes and to settle into the process. For some people that’s all they need, others prefer to carry on longer term. It really depends on you and what you’d like to explore, and it’s always your choice to continue with sessions.