Andrew Keefe

What to expect when you contact me:

I offer free 20-minute phone consultations as a first step, so you can talk about what is bringing you to therapy. I can talk about the ways I work and we can think together about what might be most helpful. If you like, we can arrange a consultation to explore what you are looking for further, or we can just meet and think together about what you are looking for.  I am a Level 4 Lower Back Pain Specialist Personal Trainer too and offer a combined fitness and psychotherapy programme for people living with Chronic Lower Back Pain or for people who want to use fitness to boost their mental health. I am also a Pilates Teacher, offering group and individual sessions to help people living with chronic lower back pain.

You can also listen to this podcast of me talking about fitness and mental health:

https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fradioverulam.com%2Fpodcast%2Fandy-keefe-episode-two-getting-active-and-flourishing-series%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C35539043b40a4f76aefc08d9070e0384%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637548579031354901%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=7Ma7f3Qai51%2Fbnh4YIp0bu2qUxnT9pdvGRuYLMILOqk%3D&reserved=0

The therapies I offer:

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation & Reprocessing), Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (Time Limited & Open Ended), Solution Focused Therapy. I am also a qualified Level 4 Personal Trainer and offer individual and group fitness sessions. I am a Pilates Teacher and offer group and individual sessions focused on chronic lower back pain.

How these therapies can help:

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing) is a therapy designed for survivors of trauma, including sexual abuse, emotional or physical abuse, survivors of terrorist attacks, accidents, bullying and other traumatic experiences. Traumatic memories can be stored in the body and the non-verbal part of the brain so sometimes just talking about what happened won’t fully solve the problem.  EMDR works at the level of the body and the nervous system to process experience which cannot be talked about: The brain has an amazing capacity to heal itself but sometimes processing can become blocked and EMDR uses eye movements, tapping and other movements to start the process again, leading to relief and healing from trauma and anxiety. Phobias panic disorders linked to early traumas can also be relieved in this way. There is growing evidence for EMDR as a treatment for Chronic Pain as it can help unlock the blockages in the nervous system which can make pain last long after the original tissue damage has healed (see section on Chronic Lower Back Pain Recovery below.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (PDP) is a talking therapy and a chance to explore in-depth your early life and relationships and how these impact on your current life and struggles.  PDP explores those parts of our minds and memories which we may not be aware of, but which impact on how we are and how we behave. The approach involves building a safe and trusting therapeutic relationship, within which the links between past and present can be explored and made sense of. PDP can help you understand how repressed, unconscious experience impacts on how we feel and behave and is helpful for depression, anxiety, and to think about relationships. You may be feeling sad, have low self-esteem without understanding why. You might be struggling after a bereavement, separation, divorce or betrayal in a relationship. PDP can help you get a better understanding of your feelings and what is happening and help you change how you think and feel about yourself and your life. It can also help with work-related stress and issues in your career by helping you understand the roots of the problems and think through what you really want to do.

Chronic Lower Back Pain Recovery: in many cases of lower back pain, the cause is more psychological or emotional than physical and the NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) guidance for the treatment of Chronic Lower Back Pain (CLBP) is a programme of exercise and psychotherapy: anxiety, stress, trauma and depression all make lower back pain worse and I offer a combined programme of exercise to raise general fitness, improve core strength and endurance, improve posture and correct faulty movement patterns linked to CLBP, together with EMDR to address the underlying psychological causes and visualisation and relaxation exercises to help you manage and reduce your pain. We can explore the emotional experiences and memories carried in the body and expressed as physical pain, processing them to reduce their power and relieving the pain. I run an online Pilates for Chronic Lower Back Pain on Mondays at 7pm - the session includes an hour of core strength, control and stability and spinal flexibility plus twenty minutes of Mindfulness, breathing, visualisation and relaxing to address the psychological elements of chronic pain.

Therapeutic Fitness: Outdoor fitness sessions, including cardio and resistance exercises, to increase confidence, stimulate the body's natural healing mechanisms and process the emotions released through exercise, within a containing therapeutic relationship. Research evidence shows exercise releases hormones within the body which improve mood and also refreshes the brain and mind, allowing rest from negative and anxious thoughts. Physical activity can also relieve memories and feelings recorded in the body and which are not available to thought and language. Within the therapeutic relationship, we can also think about what might be stopping you from exercising or what exercise means to you - whether you are over exercising and what you might be avoiding by doing this.

I have a special interest in birth trauma, working with people who are traumatised due to difficult or frightening experiences during pregnancy and labour, including miscarriage, termination and infertility / IVF issues.

I also combine fitness with therapy to help people struggling with their weight as a result of trauma, working with mind and body to help people recover. To find out more, please check out my Facebook Group: Weight Loss Anxiety Relief:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2730975397149094

For people who eat emotionally, use food to feel safe from harm and get anxious when they begin to lose weight.

Minimum fee for EMDR,  is £100 a session.

Fees for Therapeutic Fitness sessions are £50 a session.

I am registered with Bupa, Aviva, AXA PPP and other major insurance companies.

I have over seventeen years experience as a qualified psychotherapist but began practicing as a counsellor in 1998 so have twenty five years experience in total. This includes sixteen years experience working clinically with refugees, asylum seekers and survivors of torture at the Refugee Council and Freedom from Torture. This is where I learnt to work with the really deep trauma which affects people who have been through such appalling circumstances. This included working with many women and men who had been raped or sexually abused or assaulted and people whose family members had been murdered.

More recently, I have used these skills to help people who have survived a range of other traumatic experiences including terrorist attacks, birth trauma, childhood sexual abuse, rape and bullying. I have a special interest in these issues.