Rachel Watts

Tuesdays 10am - 5.30pm

Wednesdays 10am - 7pm

Fridays 10am - 5pm

Pronouns: she/her

I work hard to provide a safe space in which clients can be supported to share their experiences, thoughts and feelings, whilst building a trusting and validating relationship, perhaps for the first time. That trust is the foundation on which we will work towards your aims and goals.

Therapy needs to go at a natural pace and when it feels safe enough it can be a place where we can truly work together to explore difficulties, and discover things you have struggled to realise or work on alone.

I like to de-mystify the therapy process a little by thinking of it as an honest conversation. Often we discover the most about ourselves when we fully open up to another individual and are met with that same sincerity. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen as often as it should in our day to day lives.

The idea of an honest conversation can speak to the complexity of therapy as well, because actually having a truly honest conversation can be very difficult. As can finding a person we feel safe being that vulnerable with. This I truly appreciate, and therefore take the responsibility of anything you share with me very seriously.

I have been working one to one with clients since beginning my training at Leeds Beckett University in 2014. I have worked with a variety of issues, but currently and most often depression, anxiety, trauma, self-worth, identity, gender identity, neurodiversity, and loss. 

I work integratively, but the core of my work consists of Person-Centered Theory, a belief that when given the necessary conditions clients can make progress and movement, first towards awareness and then towards change. Person-Centered Theory holds that the client is the best judge of what should be shared, so you take the lead. This allows you to take ownership when goals are achieved. I will offer an alternative perspective and insight, and we will initially take time to build a trusting, working relationship, so that challenges and suggestions feel comfortable.

With those foundations in place, Psychodynamic Theory comes in to add another lens to reflect on your experiences, feelings and thoughts. The root of your problems may lie in pain from the past, but linking this to present feelings allows us to understand how it has shaped you in the now, and then we can work with it more effectively. Unconscious feelings and drives tied up with our past can often block progress and we will notice these processes, bringing them into the open, so we can facilitate freeing you of blockages.

The Relational Approach is one way to view the past and present working together. The relationships we form during our lives influence the way we think, feel and treat ourselves and others. The therapeutic relationship can be used to explore your approach to relationships and your feelings and thoughts towards others. The hope is that we can use it to move you to awareness about how you really effect others and how you are really perceived by others, as often when we have had difficult past experiences this can be negatively skewed. Going forward this awareness can allow you to actively form more satisfying relationships, which will transform the most important relationship of all, the one you have with yourself. It is this relationship that if nourished can create feelings of autonomy, self-worth and self-care, which informs our future outlook for the better. 

I highly recommend an initial meeting. This is a free, shorter first appointment, with no commitment to sessions following it. Its purpose is to determine whether we feel we can work together. I will be assessing whether I am able to support you and you can assess how comfortable you are with me and whether I may be someone you can open up to. You can use this time to ask any questions about the therapy we may undertake before deciding the next step.

Sessions will usually be at a regular day and time, weekly or fortnightly. This along with fees and expectations for therapy will be set out in a client contract, to be agreed within the first few sessions. Meeting in person is ideal as the therapy room is a designated safe, interruption-free space, and being in the room with each other can be an important part of the therapeutic process. However where there is a need or preference to work remotely an online alternative is available.