Ashley Horsley

I create a safe space in which you can feel ready to unburden yourself from the weight of whatever you are carrying alone.  Whether it is your anxieties and fears or your anger and dissatisfaction; whether it is haunting trauma or crippling self-doubt: whatever it is I am there to  accompany you on the journey to the bottom of it.   The work is all about communication and expression, through listening to your story and through working with your body where so often tension is trapped and tormenting.   The timing of your arrival in therapy is always the right timing: when your need wells right up to the surface and sends you to me I am here.

It is vitally important that we do not feel locked away in solitary confinement; that hope, trust and safety are accessible human resources found in contact with others. As your therapist I will work hard to sustain or recover these for you. 

The Corona Crisis: our New Reality

We have been fighting to survive not only a pandemic but the self-isolation and social distance we need to bear for the duration.   If you are somebody who needs help navigating these changes, I will offer a port in the storm for you where you can have the contact, conversation, support and connection that you need.

The work is primarily about forming a collaborative way of exploring together what you need.  I work with your patterns of thinking, of behaviour, of physical responses and the embedded feelings both emotional and somatic.   The work is also about helping you to edit your narrative, rewrite your own story by helping you to see things in a more helpful perspective: moving away from self-blame or self-pity and into a balanced, forgiving, autonomous clarity.  Life is hard sometimes, of course it is .  And I will the first to support you when it is.  But there is also always light: I will guide you towards the light whenever it feels the darkness overwhelms you.  

Our first session is essentially to explore what has brought you to me and why now.   We will look at any catalyst that has pushed you into taking this important first step and how long these difficulties have been going on for you.  

I will let you have a good feel of what it is like to be with me in the space I offer and we will watch your levels of tension and anxiety and respond to any with calming methods and reassurance.

I will ask you the basic story of your start in life, your family and childhood and anything that has been traumatic.  

I will give you an idea of how I work and what I feel you need and we will take it from there.