Sarah Devereux
Psychotherapist
Welcome
A very warm welcome. This site has been designed to tell you a little about who I am, what I offer and my perspective on therapy. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if wish to know more or have questions to ask.
About Me
I have worked in mental health services in the NHS for the past twenty years and continue to do so. As a UKCP-registered psychotherapist, I work from a consulting room and online in Herefordshire.
I am passionate about the process of change through attachment based psychoanalytic psychotherapy and its ability to support you in living the life that you wish to live. Through engagement in a secure and supportive therapeutic relationship, I believe that we can together support you in finding the space and strength to gain clarity around patterns of relating and ways of behaving, which may no longer serve you.
Therapy
We tell stories to save our own lives and stories that doom us, stories of how lucky or cursed we are, ones that serve as maps and compasses for the lives that we want to live or for the road straight to hell. Or heaven. We spin our lives into stories but our lives are only raw material; the spinning is everything.
How do you tell your story? - Rebecca Solnit
In the world according to Bowlby, our lives from the cradle to the grave, revolve around intimate attachments. Although our stance to toward such attachments is shaped most influentially by our first relationships, we are also malleable. If our early involvements have been problematic, then subsequent relationships, can offer second chances, perhaps affording us the potential to love, feel, and reflect with the freedom that flows from a secure attachment. Psychotherapy, at its best, provides just such a healing relationship.
Attachment in Psychotherapy - David Wallin
The stories that we tell ourselves and that others tell about us can mean that we continue to feel and behave in ways that reflect our early relationships. Examining the stories of how we are in relationship to others in a safe and a supportive environment can mean that we are able to identify, think about and change patterns of relating which are no longer meaningful or productive.
The ‘second chance’ a psychoanalytic psychotherapy relationship can offer can mean an opportunity to bring into awareness those ways of being which are unconscious, deeply set and instigate frustrating repetitions. A psychoanalytic approach can help us to make sense of how we got to where we are now and to face some of the feelings and fears we may have hidden from ourselves.
Psychotherapy can be seen as a cooperative venture between psychotherapist and client. Secure boundaries and confidentiality provide a safe setting that can enable clients to share experiences and feelings that they may not have been able to talk about before.
The issues that I can work with you about can include:
- Confusion about who you are, problems with identity
- Impact of violence, abuse and trauma
- Feeling afraid, panicky and stressed
- Impact of racism, oppression, discrimination, exploitation
- Experiencing anxiety, depression or suicidal feelings
- Feeling held back or stuck in your life
- Addictions, phobias and obsessions, eating problems, self-harm
- Feeling empty, lonely, abandoned, unable to make lasting relationships
- Impact of homophobia
- Loss, bereavement, relationship breakdown
- Problems around sex or sexuality
- Difficulties in family relationships
- Problems related to disability or learning disability
- Feeling in crisis or in a state of breakdown
Fees
My fees are £70.00 per session. My practice also includes lower fee sessions, operated on a sliding scale.
