Making Sense of the Chaos
Catriona is a certified sensorimotor psychotherapist and EMDR practitioner.
She was amongst the first group in the UK to complete the training, therefore one of the most experienced practitioners in the UK. Catriona began the training in 2006 and completed it in 2011. From the outset, it completely changed the way she worked and gave her the ability to understand and treat trauma and attachment disorders in ways that were previously unthinkable.
Catriona was approached by Benjamin Fry to run a clinic whilst managing a successful private practice. She has spent the last four years as Clinical Director of Khiron House trauma healing clinic. During this time, she built the clinic from a small foundation treating six patients in the centre of Oxford to the large establishment it is today with occupancy of twelve patients and a waiting list.
She had sole clinical responsibility for the delivery of treatment and care, managing not only the patients healing pathway but also the staff team. She not only ran the clinic but worked as lead therapist to the majority of residents as she was the only therapist qualified in EMDR and the only fully certified sensorimotor practitioner.
Prior to this Catriona spent six years as a manager of a therapeutic team in the NHS CAMHS service in Blackpool. In the NHS, she managed a varied team of therapists including occupational therapists, family therapists and psychiatric nurses. During her time in CAMHS her team reduced the waiting list from fifty to zero with a zero percent readmission rate. She also during my last twelve months took over management of the self-harm team, dealing with the emergency admissions to the children's' ward.
Before joining the NHS, Catriona worked for the NSPCC in Blackpool at a unit specialising in delivering therapeutic services to children and adolescents who had been victims of sexual abuse. This was a small team but they dealt with a high volume of very intense cases.
Catriona specializes in trauma and attachment including:
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OCD
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Anxiety/panic attacks
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Depression
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Agoraphobia
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Issues around food
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Debilitating indecision
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Problems managing addictive behaviours
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General fear and avoidant behaviours
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PTSD
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Attachment disorders
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Dissociative identity disorder
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Phobias
What makes her different?
One of the things that makes Catriona unique is her ability to tune in and listen to what lies underneath the words and behaviours. Time and again clients report finally being seen and fully understood. Catriona's ability to tune in, to hear the patterns and sense the underlying issues gives her clients the experience that she 'gets it' from the outset.
Catriona's clients are not with her for years because they get better and move on with their lives.
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She also works closely with an equine therapist as horses are often safer to work in relationship with than humans. Bringing equine therapy alongside sensorimotor psychotherapy is a unique concept.
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Examples
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Some have struggled on for years with different therapists, some suddenly find themselves overwhelmed and unable to cope.
One client following the suicide of a close friend suddenly found herself unable to drive her car. She would freeze and become terrified. This made no sense to her and seemed totally unrelated. We worked for four weeks using EMDR and sensorimotor work and discovered the death of her friend had brought to the surface an old trauma from a serious road accident. She thought she had dealt with this years ago and would never have made the connection. Once we had resolved the trauma of the crash she was able to drive and function normally, allowing her to grieve for her friend. This could have taken months in conventional therapy but only took four weeks working with Catriona.
Another client who had suffered sexual assault was left unable to be in crowded places, felt terrified all the time and was left with a terrible pervading smell that she could not get away from. We worked for five weeks using EMDR and the transformation in her was visible and delightful. She never had to talk about the detail of the assault and all of her symptoms left her, she was able to complete her studies and go out socialising. She was amazed at the speed of recovery as she had been suffering for eight months.