Sophie Winter

I offer evening and weekend appointments as well as daytime sessions, with sessions lasting 50 or 90 minutes.

I ask for 72 hours notice if you want to cancel a session rather than reschedule, however I'm able to reschedule at short notice and I’m happy to work with clients with unpredictable or varied schedules. If you need to reschedule I’ll do my best to offer you alternative slots so you still get the session you paid for.

I want to support you to build a compassionate relationship with parts of yourself that you may have been struggling with – parts that might get triggered and cause behaviours or feelings that make your life difficult, parts that you feel uncomfortable with or worry are shameful, or perhaps parts of you that criticise you.

I believe all parts of you, including parts that cause difficulties for yourself or for others, are worthy of compassion, understanding, safety and fulfilment. I think of therapy as a space for you to feel heard, make sense of your past experiences, and build self-compassion, self-knowledge, and the skills needed to live in greater alignment with your needs and desires.

Together we might explore the impact of traumas you've experienced; your experiences around identity, work, sex, exercise, food, parenting, health, or money; what it means to you to feel fulfilled, safe, or cared for; your interactions with important people in your life; ethical dilemmas you have; or your worries, uncertainties or hopes for the future.

I’m excited about integrating many different approaches into the way I practice. Some of the approaches I use are Internal Family Systems, Inner Relationship Focusing, Gestalt therapy, compassion-focused therapy, ego-state therapy and non-violent communication.

My core training has covered a range of modalities. I trained for three and a half years on psychodynamic, humanistic and integrative trainings before completing my training on a gestalt course.

Training I have completed

• Diploma in gestalt counselling from the Albany Centre
  
• Level 1 in Internal Family Systems
  
• Multiple trainings in NVC (non-violent communication)
  
• Intermediate/Advanced training in Inner Relationship Focusing
  

More about Internal Family Systems and parts work

If you ever feel like there’s a tug of war happening inside your own head, or find yourself acting in ways you didn’t want or plan to, you might have thought of there as being different parts of you.

IFS sees every person as made up of an ecosystem of parts, who are always doing their best to look after us. Sometimes, however, they have conflicting ideas about what that means, or try to keep us safe in ways that seem to make our lives worse!

Two features of the mind that make parts work a powerful way to work are our imaginative capabilities and that the mind isn’t a unified whole. This means you can connect with a part of yourself, discover what it needs, and offer it a reparative experience inside your own mind.

We might:

• get to know parts of you that you have a difficult relationship with, discover how they have been trying their best for you, and help them behave in a way that fit your present day circumstances.
  
• create a safe space for a vulnerable part of you to spend time in when triggers happen in the outside world.
  
• develop visualisations to support you in setting boundaries.
  
• create the ideal parent figure you needed in your childhood and let them care for your inner child.
  
• have a conversation with a loved one that has been left unfinished, or support your internalised family members in their own healing.
  
• replay a trauma from the past in your mind but give it a different ending.
  

For some people ‘dropping inside’ to do parts work feels natural. You might already notice different parts of you, such as a people-pleasing part, an angry part, an impulsive part or an inner child.

At the same time, not everyone comes to therapy already in contact with different parts of themselves, and perhaps you’re sceptical that just imagining things could have a healing effect. That’s okay too! If this is a way you’re interested in working, we can figure it out together.

If you’re interested in working together, you can start by booking a 50 minute session for a reduced fee of £25, in which we can explore working together. You can contact me via the form above or by emailing me at kwintertherapy@outlook.

I can almost always reply to enquiries within 24 hours. Please check your spam folder for a response after reaching out and leave a phone number if possible so I can let you know I've replied.