I am a UKCP and BACP registered psychotherapist, and I offer depth psychotherapy, primarily combining the psychodynamic and the transpersonal approaches. My work in psychotherapy is aimed at helping my clients become more conscious and more awakened of not only their ability to grow, transform and heal, but also to be able to think the unthinkable, tolerate difficult feelings and know the unknowable. All this work is done in a way that it does not overwhelm the mind and the body of the individual. Staying functional in life, being able to carry on with normal life, whilst taking your time to process your emotions in therapy takes precedence in the work.
I am a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP), which means that my work is informed by an understanding of how single-incident trauma (PTSD) and multiple-incidents trauma (C-PTSD) alter the felt experience in the brain and body of trauma survivors. In addition to talking therapy, where a client is willing to work creatively, I offer sandplay therapy to trauma survivors, which helps them (amongst other things) to observe their inner world in the safety of a box, whilst being able to feel it little bit at a time - also known as maintaining 'dual awareness' in trauma treatment.
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I welcome the use of arts and creativity in the process of psychotherapy. This includes sandtray, art images, poetry, drawing and the use of symbols to explore life experiences that are difficult to put into words.
The Psychodynamic Approach and Attachments
I help my clients look at how their early life experiences of their family, siblings, friends, and society happened to shape their sense of self and their personality. By ‘sense of self’ I refer to the subjective experience of who I tell myself I am or how I experience or see myself; and by ‘personality’ I refer to how one relates to other people, whether that is through spontaneity, calm and with ease or whether that is through fright, apprehension or hopelessness.
The process of emotional wounding, or difficult life experiences, often happens in groups of people, and therefore I work with my clients to discover how they started to find their place in groups of people such as family, school and friends.
It is often these adaptive mechanisms that one had to develop in relation to others – to be accepted by others, or to feel physically and emotionally safe around others – which cause relational difficulties in the present and suppress something of one’s essential and authentic nature.
The Transpersonal Approach
Work in therapy is also about discovering one’s essential self, one’s unrealised potential, discovering the meaning of one’s life, and to discover who one was meant to be had one not adapted in the face of life’s challenges. By one’s authentic self, I mean the qualities (such as playfulness, expressiveness, quiet contemplation, etc.) that a person can feel naturally arising from within, without having to filter or alter them to meet the demands of society or significant-others.
Depth psychotherapy presents us with the view that there is more to us than our life’s wounding; that there is a deeper dimension of our self that we can access from where guidance, therapeutic qualities and our potential can emerge. I work with clients, who are ready to go there, in order to connect to this layer of the psyche.
Transformation, Integration and Growth
Depth psychotherapy offers us a profound hope, that it is possible to transform one’s past wounding, it is possible to become more integrated by bringing together different and often contradictory aspects of us, and it is possible to grow by allowing our essential or authentic nature to become a lasting part of us.
These processes often take a long time, years to say the least, but they are deeply rewarding and fulfilling in being able to relate more authentically and freely with others around us.
The Trauma Approach
My work is informed by Trauma- and Affect Regulation theories, and the training that I have received in this field through professional workshops and supervision. I work with relational- or developmental trauma, and with clients who have symptoms of PTSD. For clients who are willing to explore, I often teach emotional self-regulation techniques to help them feel more grounded and balanced within themselves. Self-regulation can be profoundly useful in improving the quality of one's life whilst the process of healing trauma takes a longer period of time.
A trauma-informed approach means that feeling more stable within yourself, becoming more functional in life is the first goal of therapy rather than processing traumatic experiences, which often takes a long time.
Art and Poetry
"He holds warm mug,
holds memory,
holds emotion,
yet he doesn't hold
what the hour does..."
© 2017. Sumeet Grover.I am passionate about the power of the arts in helping individuals to access deeper layers of the unconscious, and of the arts in helping people to express and explore themselves. I welcome the use of artmaking and poetry in the therapy room; I provide basic art materials including colour pencils, oil pastels, crayons and standard A4 sheets for drawing.