Who am I?
I grew up in the Scottish Borders, and was educated at Edinburgh and Stirling Universities. I worked for about 9 years as a social worker. After 2 years of an intensive personal psychoanalysis in the mid-seventies, I began exploring the newly developing human potential movement, and experienced several forms of therapy, including gestalt, breath therapy and rebirthing, encounter groups, bio-energetics and several forms of bodywork. My journey took me to India, where I lived and worked in the spiritual community of the Indian mystic, Osho.I lived for many years in India, and in the mid-90’s returned to the Himalayas where I lived a fairly isolated existence, making the most of the opportunity of a slower pace, a less material focus, and the chance to befriend myself at a deeper level. I also had a lot of fun!
In the 80’s I lived in the U.S.A. for 7 years, and enjoyed the expansion of experience and the diversity of culture that it offered.
This meeting of East and West, and the interconnectedness of mind, body, emotions and spirit, are important hallmarks of my work.
I have now lived back on my home ground of Scotland for many years, and while family and friends are scattered all over the globe, the connection to my roots and the land sustains and nourishes me.
Professional Qualifications
UKCP accredited psychotherapist
Professional member of NLPtCA
Master Practitioner in N.L.P.
Certificate in Ericksonian Hypnosis
Diploma in Social Work
B.Sc. in Social Science
I have also completed several other trainings in therapy at the Osho Multiversity in India, which include a basis in spiritual and intuitive therapy, various forms of body work, Reichian therapy and breath therapy, bereavement and relationship counselling.
I am committed to ongoing training in new approaches, and have regular supervision as is required by my professional code of ethics.
Personal Approach
I work in a broadly integrative way, with a spiritual bias, and a commitment to finding the style and methods best suited to whoever I work with. I have trained in a wide range of methods.
- 'Therapy is different in every case......I treat every patient as individually as possible, because the solution of the problem is always an individual one.'
Carl Gustav Jung
What Do I Value?
- Committment to honesty and emotional transparency
- Respect for the uniqueness of each individual's process
- Trust in the essential rightness of whatever our lives bring us
- An attitude of curiosity
- Acceptance of the inevitability of change
- Flexibility
- Willingness to 'hang in' with uncertainty and 'not-knowing'
- Willingness to embrace all aspects of life, the dark and the light, the happiness and the sadness, the old and the new, the deep and the shallow, the love and the fury!
- Humour and playfulness
- Openness to the unfathomable mystery of life!
- 'The river of life courses through each of us, bringing every experience known to humankind. In this sense, life is out to get us, helping us to become more and more of a human being. We cannot avoid the basic experiences of fear, joy, anger, sadness, excitement, envy and so forth. The basic question is our relationship to this river of life. We can fear and try to dam it, ignore and exploit it, or accept and work with it. It is this latter relational skill that we call love.'
Stephen Gilligan
