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Counselling Psychology & Psychotherapy 

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Hello, I am Isabella. Welcome.

I offer a compassionate and non-judgmental space for you to talk and to be heard. I see the relationship we build together as central. Our work together might include exploring difficult feelings or thoughts in the present and how they may connect to past experiences and relationships. We will work together to begin to find your own meanings and to find ways to live more in keeping with what you value and want from your life.

​I am a counselling psychologist, registered with the HCPC (Health and Care Professions Council). I am based in Bristol but also offer therapy online, with individuals and couples.

How I work

I take a relational approach to therapy and work in a down-to-earth and warm way. This means that I will respond to you as a whole human being within your own unique circumstance, for example considering the context of your family and community. My framework attends to the ways in which different forms of oppression impact your wellbeing; and how material conditions and inequalities create and maintain trauma and distress. I will encourage you to look beyond strategies and tools and instead to begin to foster a deeper connection to your body and nervous system, as well as a connection to the natural world. This is about learning and healing, with curiosity and compassion. 

I have over ten years' experience of working with marginalised communities, in the field of mental health. I currently hold a role as a counselling psychologist in the NHS. I draw on theories and ideas from different places and am more than happy to discuss my take on different therapeutic modalities and perspectives. My primary clinical influences are relational psychoanalysis, existentialism, as well as somatic trauma-focused and eco-psychological approaches. 

 

Ultimately, I will work collaboratively with you to meet your needs above all.

I work therapeutically with a range of difficulties and dilemmas. These include (and are not limited to):

  • Anxiety

  • Sadness & depression

  • Trauma arising from discrimination & exclusion

  • Sexual violence

  • Cultural issues, migration & belonging

  • Relationship difficulties & interpersonal conflict

  • Bullying, harassment & abuse

  • Loss & grief (personal & ecological)

  • Farmers’ & landworkers’ mental health

  • LGBTQ+ related issues & identity 

  • Living with physical health-related difficulties & pain

  • Body image & food-related distress

  • NHS doctors, nurses & health/care workers

  • Work-/activism-related stress & burnout

 

I speak English, Italian, Spanish and French which can help clarify certain concepts if they are easier to express in your native language.

Some practicalities

I offer one-to-one and couples' sessions for 50 minutes on a weekly basis.

The first step is to get in touch with me via email (or via the contact form) to request a free 15-minute consultation over the phone. This gives us the chance to ask each other a few questions and see whether you would like to book an initial assessment with me.

This assessment is charged at the standard fee. It gives us the chance to talk in greater depth about what has brought you to therapy at this time, a bit about yourself and your life. We can then decide whether we are best suited to continue working together and how we might go about it if we are.

I work face-to-face in the Bristol Practice Rooms and also offer therapy online. The Cotham Practice Rooms has one fully accessible room on the ground floor with a ramp for a wheelchair. Please do let me know if you have any additional accessibility requirements or sensory needs, and I will try my best to meet them. I can work with you with an interpreter if required, but you would need to cover the cost of the interpreter.

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