Katharine Edge

I believe that given the right kind of environmental support, people are basically growth-oriented. We want good relationships, meaningful pursuits, to feel understood and seen, and to be safe. Sometimes our pasts or the systems we live within can make it feel impossible to achieve those things. My hope is that by listening to you, trying to understand who you are and why you've made the choices you have, and offering as much insight as I can, we may be able to help you get back towards those fundamental human needs. 

What kind of therapist am I?

I am an integrative psychotherapist and a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP) and the UK Council for Psychotherapy. In brief this means that I trained in a wide range of therapeutic methods and theories, and that I try to think about each client and each problem from several points of view.

How do I work?

I've worked with clients for a short number of sessions and for extended periods, and I'm comfortable with whichever duration a client prefers. Broadly speaking I tend to view therapy as being as natural and dynamic as any human relationship: we may rub along well very quickly, or find it takes a while to get into a stride.

I may work quite differently with one person from how I work with another, because the relationship will be different. You might have a firm idea about how you want to think about your life, and I may have another, and between us we'll gradually work out a middle ground.

There's no great mystery to therapy; it's just a conversation between two people, and generally it follows the same rules as any other conversation does. The important difference is that in this conversation you are the focus. We're sitting together to think about your life, your worries, your history. I'm there as an aide to that, but I'm not the centre of it. That kind of opportunity for unbroken care and attention is rare in day-to-day life. I believe that's what makes therapy unique.

What are my areas of expertise?

I've tended to work with a lot of people experiencing a sense of being lost in life, either because they’ve arrived somewhere without quite knowing how they got there, or because they don’t know where to go next. In mid-life it can suddenly occur to us that we’ve lost sight of ourselves. After two decades of friends, career, perhaps establishing a family, it’s not uncommon to feel that life has begun to happen to us, rather than being something we’re actively choosing.

Sometimes this is a consequence of working in a high-pressure environment over a prolonged period. Sometimes it’s a consequence of sacrificing parts of oneself while raising children. Sometimes it’s because a bereavement or other loss has called into question the fundamental structures of our lives. Whatever the reason, it’s a privilege to be asked to sit with people while they find their way back to themselves.

Specific areas of interest include the pressure of being part of a high-achieving system (workplace, family or culture), parenthood and the particular challenges it brings, disordered eating of all types, addictive or self-destructive coping mechanisms, and creative burnout.

Prior to any first session I would try to have a brief telephone call with you to learn a little about you, as well as to enable you to ask me any questions you may have. In this call we would decide together whether to proceed to a first session.

In the first session I would hope to take a broad history, as well as a more detailed account of what has been happening recently which has lead you to therapy. I would then expect us to review again whether we feel we're a good fit after the second or third session.