Counselling and Psychotherapy Maidenhead

My name is Gayle Creasey and I am an experienced psychotherapist.  My counselling and psychotherapy practice is in Maidenhead (SL6 7JR).

I offer in person and online sessions.

You are welcome to come for a single session or for as long as feels helpful to you.

I offer daytime, after school and evening sessions Mondays to Thursday between 9am- 6.30pm.

Common Counselling and Psychotherapy Issues:

I am experienced in working with people struggling with:

  • anger management & aggression
  • anxiety & emotional worries
  • bereavement & loss
  • confidence/ self-esteem
  • depression/ post natal depression
  • domestic abuse
  • exam & deadline stresses
  • family & friendship issues
  • low self esteem
  • performance anxiety
  • relationship issues
  • separation & divorce
  • sleep problems
  • trauma & abuse

Why try counselling or psychotherapy?

I believe that life is complicated for all of us.  You may be reading this because you are struggling with some difficulties yourself or because you are worried about your child.  Painful and difficult times show up at all ages and stages of life.  

Finding the right support at these times is crucial.  We all need a safe place to talk about and think through what is troubling us.  It is not always possible to do this with family and friends and this is when having some counselling or psychotherapy sessions can be really helpful. 

You may like to explore using the creative arts in your counselling or psychotherapy sessions.  This means that you, or your child, do not always have to rely on words. Instead, you can use images and metaphor to express what is going on inside you. This can offer new insight into the feelings and issues affecting your well being.

EMDR

EMDR is a therapy aimed at helping you to recover from a traumatic event or time in your life. After any traumatic event the images, thoughts and emotions can remain. These can create ‘overwhelm’, or being back in that moment where you may feel “frozen in time.”  

EMDR Therapy helps you process these memories with bilateral stimulation and this allows normal healing to occur. It effectively helps your brain to join the dots of a neural network so that it recognises an event is in the past rather than still occurring in the present.

EMDR is helpful with traumatic events like a car crash, an assault, a medical procedure or domestic violence.

Attachment Informed EMDR is also effective with healing the trauma of what might have been missing while you were growing up.  If you did not have an emotionally attuned parent and felt alone with your emotions and the events in your life as a child this can lead to attachment wounding.  These wounds can  cause ongoing struggles in your adult life which EMDR can help to heal.

Together, we identify those experiences and work through them releasing the unhelpful thoughts, emotions and body sensations attached to those memories. This allows you to be more present and to feel more resilient in your life.

EMDR can also be used to help treat a variety of mental health problems like depression, anxiety, panic attacks, OCD, phobias and low self esteem.

It is suitable for adults, young people and children.  

You can find out more at the UK & Ireland EMDR Association

 

Internal Family Systems Therapy

At its heart, IFS believes in the innate goodness of every individual. It suggests that your psyche is made up of a “Self” and various “parts.” The Self is your core essence, while the parts are protective mechanisms that develop in response to life’s challenges.

In other words, your mind is like a family with different members playing specific roles. Just as a family has members who protect, care, or even cause chaos, your mind has parts that do the same.

The “Self” in IFS is the compassionate, confident and calm centre of your being. It’s the “you” that remains constant amidst the ever-changing sea of emotions, thoughts, and experiences.

Protector parts are the guardians of your psyche. They ensure that your wounded parts carrying the weight of past traumas, fears, and negative beliefs remain hidden to prevent further harm.

Managers are the parts that maintain control. They strategize, plan and ensure that you’re safe from potential harm. They can show up as a highly critical part, an avoidant part, a people pleasing or perfectionist part.

When your wounded parts are triggered, firefighters spring into action. They might resort to behaviours like over working, binge-eating, substance abuse or self-harm to distract you from the pain.

By understanding and healing your parts, you can achieve emotional balance, self-awareness and personal growth.  IFS can help you understand your triggers and reactions leading to healthier relationships both internally and externally.

Contacting Me

You are welcome to call me on 0794 1279177 to have a chat and ‘get a feel for me’. 

I can tell you more about how I work and practical things like my availability and cost and you might like to tell me about what you are hoping for from some sessions.  You may then like to book an initial counselling or psychotherapy session to meet me in person to find out if you feel that you ‘click’ with me.


Gayle Creasey – Counselling and Psychotherapy Maidenhead