Therapy Clients
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“I arrived at David’s door in the midst of a crisis. My world around me was breaking up. At the age of 40, the walls of protection I’d constructed over the years were tumbling down. And in particular, a big wall that a little girl had put up a long time ago. A little girl who’d had her heart broken by her Daddy at four years old – and now all these years later, it was getting broken again by another man. The pain was cutting so deep it crashed down the wall of protection to reveal the sad and angry child within. A child that was waiting for a safe space and friendly face to come out.
And here, David provided that space and face. With the patience of a parent, he allowed all the expressions of my inner child to feel very welcome. We coaxed her out of her shyness and there were great displays of grief, sadness, anger and play – whatever needed to be expressed, could be expressed. And under the skilful guidance of David is where my journey of deep inner work begun. David taught me how to begin with the body and hear the body’s truth. A voice that if I tuned in enough would whisper the wisdom of how to get back to my authentic self.
I felt we covered so much ground over one year of therapy – there were journeys within journeys – and it was a hugely transformative period. There was a part of me that drove it with such intensity because it knew I was so far removed from true self – and was desperate to get back. I used to hear of the Buddhist term of ‘coming home’ but never had a real felt-sense of it. I get a sense of it now and the beauty of it cracks open my heart.
Thank you for showing me the way David. Showing me I can trust to live mindfully with an open heart – with boundaries but without walls.”
– Rosie
“I came to David looking for help managing my anger and prevalent Cannabis addiction issues, problems that I had struggled to manage for the past 15 years.
Growing up my father was the Vicar at a local church and as such pretty much my entire world outside of school was oriented around the church, a community that had felt supportive & loving until I realised that I was sexually and romantically interested in the same sex around the age of 13. In that moment I went from feeling like I had a huge support network to knowing that I needed to protect myself from that very same community.
The subsequent years were the hardest I have ever gone through, I struggled heavily with large amounts of harder drugs from 16 to 18 and put myself in hospital more than once as a result of my destructive behaviour. After a while I gradually learnt how to love and trust myself more and did so without the support of my family.
Whilst I made it through all of that on my own, years later I was aware that I had many unhealed wounds, I still felt substantial animosity towards my family and was struggling to manage my anger using cannabis as a coping mechanism.
After seeing David for over a year he has helped me work through not only my past wounds relating to my experience as a child and teenager but also working through my issues in a relationship relating to a sexual assault in my partner’s past among others.
In my work with David we explored a world within myself through guided meditations and grounded discussion, this work has given me access to invaluable conscious tools and structure within which to manage and embrace what the future holds. As a result of this I have a far better relationship with my parents, a much healthier relationship with Cannabis and am no longer ashamed to ask for help when I need it.”
– Ben
“I was attacked in the street not far from my house when I was sixteen and had Cancer when I was seventeen. My mother passed away when I was twenty years old and fifteen years later, my sister and brother-in-law passed away within a space of eighteen months. I am now coming up to my 35th birthday and previous to working with David I felt like I was in a cycle of grief that did not serve my life. I saw patterns of behaviour in my life repeat over and over in relationships with my family and in my love-life. These patterns did not serve me and created greater distance between my loved ones and me and were an obstacle to intimacy.
It is hard to describe how David works but over the year that we met together I built up a great trust for his approach that involved looking inside the body and the different energies and anxieties within and letting them out, observing them. In each of the twitches and strains in my body, in the way I breathe, there is the fullness of my emotional self, what David taught me is how to begin to see my full self in the way that I move and the way that I breathe.
I am not healed and I still have days that are hard but my life is richer and I feel I am learning to love again in new ways. Above and beyond, my life is more honest and each day I am pushed to be more transparent and expressive of my feelings with those around me. David allowed me to talk about my journey and my process but he also taught me a mode of living, skills which enable me to see myself and what I feel from moment to moment.
I would not hesitate to return to work with David again or to recommend him to people I work with or friends and family.
Thank you, David.”