Dr Claudia Herbert

I passionately believe in the potential for inner growth and development in each person. My work involves helping people to recover from psychological dis-ease and past painful life experiences through facilitating the gradual discovery and growth of each person's unique, authentic Self.

When there has been trauma or other difficult or challenging life experiences most people have to let go of parts of their authentic Self (dissociate) and adopt coping strategies in order to survive their specific circumstances as best as they can. While highly adaptive initially, because it blocks out the pain of these experiences at the time, in later life there are often great personal costs attached to these survival-based strategies. Examples are feelings of a false sense of Self; of inner emptiness, unhappiness or depression; low self-esteem or insecurity; low frustration tolerance or anger; anxiety or fear; a sense of drifting through life without aims; addictions and cravings; eating disorders; self-destructive behaviours, and several others.

While dissociated, the pain connected to past experiences has not been able to process and therefore can frequently cause very uncomfortable symptoms, such as, sudden intrusive, overwhelming images; flashbacks and reliving experiences; nightmares; strong emotional or physical reactions; feelings of numbing or detachment; hypervigilance; safety behaviours; guilt; dissociative symptoms, such as feeling disconnected from life and several others. It is often events in daily life, such as interactions with a partner or in a work setting, which can bring out these symptoms.

However, situations which confront us with great inner pain, such as past trauma or abuse or a current life crisis, can move us into our process of inner growth and healing. Through my own personal and professional growth process, I have learnt that if we can move safely further into the pain, which confronts us, and process it, rather than trying to suppress or avoid it, we can mobilise our body, mind and Soul's natural healing processes and strengthen and grow internally. This helps us 1. to transform and change those strategies which are no longer useful to us now, 2. experience and integrate aspects of ourselves, which we have split off from in the past and 3. become increasingly more authentic, accepting, compassionate and loving of ourselves. This, in turn, positively affects our functioning in life, including an improvement in our personal relationships, as well as, the relationship with our Self and thus enabling us to feel internally stronger, more fulfilled and content. I work with individuals throughout all age spans and couples who want to address their relationship issues.

I am the Director of The Oxford Development Centre Ltd, Oxfordshire's longest established independent specialist Psychology Service (19 years) and the Centre for Trauma Healing and Growth. This is a private, confidential, independent psychological treatment service, based in Witney, Oxfordshire. There my team of specialists and I have been dedicated to providing such therapeutic work for our clients. Currently, interested clients can be seen by specialist therapists, following the above outlined approach, within my team or by myself at our specially designed therapeutic premises in Witney, Oxfordshire, or also at our Cotswold Centre for Trauma Healing in Stroud, Gloucestershire - (https://www.oxdev.co.uk).

Our approach is to individually tailor therapy to each client's needs and their particular problems and goals. We work very collaboratively and feel that it is important for clients to feel empowered and included throughout all parts of their process of therapy. We recognise that clients need to feel safe and secure within the therapeutic relationship and need to be valued and met as unique individuals in order to be able to engage in their healing process and benefit from therapy.

In order to achieve this, I draw on my extensive professional experience as a Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist and Trauma Expert (25+ years) and the use of a wide range of therapeutic methods, including Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy (CBT), Schema Mode Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM), Transpersonal and Depth Psychology, Havening, Focussing, Energy Psychology, Mindfulness- and Consciousness-based Approaches, Holistic Western and Eastern Healing Methods, as well as, others.

I have extensive experience in preparing Medico-Legal Reports and providing Expert Witness Work in Court

Fees:

• £210 per hour for private client consultations
• £250 per hour for medico-legal work and consultations to business
• £120 to £170 per hour for work with one of the specialists in my team

I am bilingual in German and English. I work with adults individually, as well as, with couples. Our team of specialists in Witney or Stroud can also offer therapeutic work with children, adolescents and families.

Our services at The Oxford Development Centre Ltd (www.oxdev.co.uk) are conveniently located in Witney, Oxfordshire, and in Stroud, Gloucestershire and both offer convenient parking facilities nearby (free parking in Witney). Witney has a good bus connection to Oxford and, both, Oxford and Stroud can easily be reached by train from London and other parts of the country.