Psychodynamic Psychotherapist – Co-founder of ChAT Services
Qualification and experience
I am a trained and qualified psychotherapist with extensive training working with individuals across their lifespan: children, adults, older adults, as well as couples in different sectors: private and public sectors, charities and private practice, since 2006 (UCL, Birkbeck, Place2Be, Kid’s Inspire, Weightmatters, Travistock, Mind, and Age UK)
More specifically, I have had the pleasure of applying my skills to deliver therapeutic work for children in Primary Schools, aged between 5 and 13 years old, where I implemented various approaches in both one-to-one settings and group settings. I have also worked with teenagers (aged between 11 and 18 years old) at a Secondary School, helping young adolescents using a short-term six-to-twenty session model that aided with depression, anxiety, addictions, and anger management. Further, I have had the chance to be able to work with students across universities (UCL and Birkbeck), as a Student Counsellor helping them cope with student-hood and co-occurring mental health difficulties. As well as working with children and adolescents, I work in an Outpatients Eating Disorder as a Trauma Therapist where I assist with managing and recovering from a range of Eating Disorders using solution-focused therapies (short-term and long-term). I am also a Couples Therapist, with a niche specialty in coping with Dementia and Retirement. Thus, I have worked with older adults (55+) as a Psychodynamic Counsellor helping individuals to cope with depression, relationship difficulties, loss, and bereavement.
Together, my experience has given me the opportunity to work with people from diverse backgrounds, across a wide range of ages and issues, including but not limited to eating disorders, psychosomatic conditions, depression, anxiety, personality disorders and dissatisfaction in work or inability to form satisfactory relationships as well as gender issues.
My approach to therapy
During those 16 years, I have been blending my skills in psychology and psychotherapy working mostly from a psychodynamic model which means helping you to understand and resolve difficulties by increasing awareness of your inner world and exploring how this influence relationships both past and present. Therapy helps you gain awareness of unhelpful patterns of thinking in a non-judgmental and safe environment so you can understand and change them. Getting awareness of these deep-seated patterns helps reducing symptoms and thus reducing distress. I believe that the experiences we encounter in life and our personality shape how we use emotions to defend against pain/anxiety and how we relate to the outside world. The work is about understanding obstructive patterns (i.e. defences) in a collaborative way between the client and the therapist and through this achieve long lasting change. However, I also incorporate other approaches according to the client’s needs such as CBT and EMDR. I truly value and understand diversity as my clients come from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds.
Current work and interest
More recently, I completed my training in working with older people and the issues that arise from that age range, such as the effect of dementia on the client and their families, as well as bereavement and loss. Additionally, I have trained in Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy – DIT which offers an in depth insight to the root causes of a person’s difficulties through a time limited approach (16 sessions).
At the moment, I have a growing interest in neuroscience and mapping how the brain’s mechanisms correlate with different aspects of mental health. Thus, I am also completing an extensive course about the advances of neuropsychology and neuropsychoanalysis.
Interventions
- Psychodynamic psychotherapy
- CBT
- Adults, children and teenager’s therapy
- Parental guidance and counselling
- Family Co-Therapy
- DIT – Dynamic Interpersonal therapy
- EMDR
- Couple’s therapy
Memberships
- BACP – British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
Additional languages
- Spanish
- Portuguese
To get in touch with Rebeca please send an email to support@chatservices.co.u