About Me
After a long journey of self-healing and self growth, I came to understand the importance of therapy for individuals and it’s role for humanity. By healing ourselves we heal our past wounds, we feel better, but we also prevent harming the futur generations and people around us.
I spent the first twenty five years of my life in spiritual bypassing, trying to run away from the suffering of being human and my hypersensitivity. Escaping my emotions and repressing parts of myself I judged improper, focussing only on positive thinking and light. But then I became a mother, three times, and all that I was censoring in me came smashing down my illusory self, and I had to face… the real me, the imperfect me, the entire me.
Through therapy and self-practices I learnt to be understanding and compassionate to all of my internal aspects. Accepting and forgiving myself for having carried, as many have, the perpetrator energy. Healing my pathological guilt, relationship dependency and finding my true vulnerability, my authenticity. I started becoming whole again.
With time, ten years of training and experience, I found the approach that resonates the most with my vision of healing, and I found the tools and qualities I needed as a therapist to accompany every person on their own self-realization.
I love the work I do and the healing impact it has on people’s life.
I am passionate about my approach, I am authentically present and I have deep compassion for the people I support.
Training
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy By Katelyn Baxter-Musser
- Treating Personality disorders : Brain science and traumatologie advances by Noel Larson, PhD
- Parts Work for treating Traumatic attachment & BPD by Janina Fisher, PhD
- The Clinical Application of the Internal Family System Model by Frank G.Anderson, MD
- Borderline Personality Disorder and Traumatic attachment : Trauma-informed techniques for dysregulated emotional and autonomic states by Janina Fisher, PhD
- The Diagnostic and Psychology of Borderline Personality Disorder by psychotherapist Pierre Nantas President of the association AFORPEL
HypnoNatal® hypnosis for birthing by psychologist and author Lise Bartoli
- Compassionate Inquiry the psychotherapeutic approach of Gabor Maté, MD Specialized in Addiction and Trauma
- Master Practitioner in Ericksonian Hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Manu Kissoun & Francis Petot
- Sophrology by Catherine Aliotta President of the Union Chambre of Sophrology
Experience
- Private practice since 2012 as a Psycho-practitioner, Hypnotherapist, Sophrologist in Paris and Lisbon
- Facilitating Anonymous Borderline talk groups on line for the AFORPEL association
- Animating support group for overwhelmed mothers in Lisbon
- Assisting in a group therapy for mental disorder in psychiatric day hospital Egas Moniz 2018 – 2019
Understanding My Approach
My approach is phenomenological and client-lead, meaning the emphasis is on the client’s process of self-discovery, self-growth and self-understanding. This process can unfold because of the empathic listening and understanding, the gentle presence, acceptance, compassion and respect that I have for the clients I support.
« When the therapist becomes a clear mirror and only reflects, the client can progress toward his authentic self. » Gabor Maté creator of compassionate Inquiry (CI)
The approach I use is also psycho-somatic and neuroscience based, hence although it is a talk based therapy involving the mind, the client will also experience, in the body, the sensations and/or emotions that are arising. By being present to them the client learns to have compassion and understanding for that part carrying the emotion, awakening the neocortex.
Unblended the client can create distance and space for them to stop reacting impulsively and start choosing how they decide to behave and who they choose to be.
In the therapeutical space clients will be able to truly see who they are, the patterns they are repeating and the wounds they are carrying. They will come to understand what truly serves them and what has limited them, listening to every aspects and parts of themself.
The therapy can either be short, medium or long-term depending on the context. Some clients might need short term support because they are in crisis and some may wish to work in depth learning more about who they are and how they function in the world.
I would also like to say that I use the word « client » and not « patient » as I do not see a person as having to be passively « fixed » but as someone who has the power and innate resources to be resilient and « participate » in their own healing process.
My Therapeutical Tools
Compassion Therapy - CI
Compassionate Inquiry (CI) is a psychotherapeutic and somatic approach practiced and created by Dr. Gabor Maté.
This approach is inspired by Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Polyvagal theory, IFS, ACT therapy and A.H.Almaas teachings : « Only when compassion is present will people allow themselves to see the truth ». The truth is what lies beneath the appearance we show to the world.
Compassionate Inquiry helps reveal what is hidden and forgotten inside of us, what is unknowingly directing our thoughts, emotions and behaviors, so we can heal and become our whole self again.
Clients learn to recognize their unconscious patterns and free themselves from them. They also gain inner emotional space and clarity to choose the way they want to behave.
They gain awareness and find their true Self again.
Parts Work or IFS
Parts work and IFS are based on the principle that individuals have multiple internal aspect, multiple inner parts or sub-personality that have been created as coping mechanism. These parts create the facets of our personality and are seen as symptoms of adaptation.
Janina Fisher, PhD created the TIST model explaining that people who have experienced repetitive traumas in early childhood fragmented their inner self in different parts. They will have the « going on with normal life » part ( left brain ) and the « trauma related » parts ( right brain ), that contain : fight, flight, freeze, submit and attach parts.
Richard Schwartz, MD founded the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, based on the fact that the mind is naturally multiple, with different parts that are in relationship with one an other as in a family . Each individual also has a core Self that knows how to heal, allowing us to become integrated and whole.
Both models harmonize the mind, helps reassociate and repair the scattered self.
DBT
Dialectical Behavior Therapy was developed by clinical psychologist Marsha Linehan and designed to treat borderline personality disorder patients.
This therapy combines principles of behavior therapy, cognitive therapy and mindfulness.
It is a therapy that helps overcome the dualistic and contradictory aspect of BPD by creating a synthesis.
Helping individuals to accept the reality of their lives and their own behaviors and at the same time helping them learn to change their lives, including dysfunctional behaviors.
DBT helps individuals learn how to regulate and to tolerate their emotions.
DBT treatments have four stages :
- Stabilization and regulation of impulsif behaviors
- Working on trauma
- Enhancing self-esteem and the capacity to resolve problems
- Amplify the capacity to feel joy