Vanessa Dent - Evolving to deliver an integrated therapeutic practice

I explore clients’ past and early relationships and how this impacts present interactions. We feel with our bodies not our minds so, rather than thinking about feeling, being aware of feelings in our bodies means they don’t become stuck. This heightens intuition which generates well-grounded decisions. I therefore use body psychotherapy where somatic practices can make trauma therapy safer, increase mind-body integration and support the management of feelings.
I work at relational depth paying attention to the relationship between myself and the client in order to make sense of any relational difficulties they may be experiencing and gain clues as to where the solutions to problems may lie. I use mindfulness to help to build resilience and creativity where the nonverbal dimensions of art activities tap into preverbal states. Art provides both safety and distance yet also allows opportunity for full expression of experience allowing the brain to establish new, more productive patterns.
These are my starting points, in a safe non-judgmental space from which to explore your difficulties, modified in practice according to each individual and relationship.
I have 18 years in the NHS and a wide range of experience in psychological and emotional difficulties which include anxiety and depression, relationship difficulties, anger, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, bereavement, low self-esteem, unresolved childhood troubles, trauma, sexual, emotional and physical abuse, chronic pain, addiction and anxiety.
I am committed to helping to facilitate your authentic self, letting go of defenses so that you may live more fully.
I also have an affinity for those that would describe themselves as ‘highly sensitive’ people who have experienced the world as an oppressive and frightening place and feel easily trapped by guilt, shame and the depth and intensity of their emotional being. Where self doubt, self judgement, people pleasing, pretending or masking in order to fit in, avoiding confrontation at all cost or constantly comparing to others, limits freedoms to such an extent that the world can become both an exhausting and lonely place to be. A sensitivity to the world that is overwhelmingly experienced as a burden rather than a gift