Martin Linton

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IFS Therapy & Counselling for Individuals & Couples
Available for new clients
Available for new clients

This professional is available for new clients.

Bristol BS2 & Cardiff CF10
Available for new clients
Available for new clients

This professional is available for new clients.

About me

Hello and Welcome...

I’ve been practicing IFS since 2011 and have fully trained in the Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFST), approaches. This is additional and adds another dynamic to my Systemic Practice, for work with both individuals and couples.

Having practiced approaches for emotional calming since the 1980’s - the blend of these methods, combined together, are proving to my practice as invaluable for peoples throughout all walks of life...

I regularly witness what people refer to as “impossible feelings” transforming to become useful resources. 

My practice of therapy has helped me understand how natural resources can and do arise to assist people life more wholesomely.  Realising preferred outcomes aside and with manifesting human qualities that give relief from calmer states of being are very much possible and accessible to all.  

The contexts of practice I draw from focus on the relationships that exist both inside personal experiences / thoughts / emotions / feelings about the mind and body. These systems are known as "parts" in IFS or contexts with Systemic Thinking, whilst observing external patterns and social contexts that can surround, inform, generate, construct, bind with, and relation with these inner realities.  

I feel deeply honoured to meet people as their counsellor / therapist and witness peoples change with what is often described as “a sense of deepening freedom and perspective”. 

What to Expect:

  • Empathic acceptance, compassionate, respectful and safe attention.
  • Engaging a warm, honest, collaborative / dialogical therapeutic relationship (source resource).
  • Connection with a person who has also experienced adversity and has experienced the benefits of the therapeutic process.
  • Assistance and trust towards meeting clients therapeutic needs with realism. 
  • An amalgam of containment, listening, creativity, coaching, gentle challenge and encouragement towards the potentials of wholesome well-being.
  • Emerging difference with new communicative ways and calm, the newness of change - newness may initially feel more than familiar.
  • An opportunity to discover, tune emotional communication (feelings), and express yourself / selves more fully.
  • Value-based focus with mindful attunement from extensive experience.
  • Results with male and female clients.

Training, qualifications & experience

  • My experience:

    As an IFS therapist and systemic counsellor my professional experience has enabled me to deal with the broad range of presenting problems. My speciality is finding and working with people to heal their traumas.  Traumas are often realized as the root of other systems that communicate with the emotional system with and through the body as protective symptoms.  I have developed a unique approach since my formal practice started in 2011. This means I am used to working with a wide range of presenting clientele from most demographics. e.g. Referrals from: Major Employers, Music and Film industry, General Public / Private, NHS and Mental Health agencies, Social issues, and also referrals from other counsellors.  All this is complimentary to a wide scope of transferable skills and understandings from my previous role as a staff mentor where I coached to cope with difficulty and stress. My work / personal life experience draws off a broad array of demographics / contexts / and situations where counselling / coaching skills and knowledge have been key.

  • Qualifications:
  • Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFST) Psychotherapy / Practitioner. I have completed the practitioner Mastering Skills trainings and all required levels (1,2, & 3) of the IFST training program.  IFS-Therapy is the new wave of very effective Systemic Practice that is both evidence and practice-based, mindful, safe and non-pathologizing 4th wave psychotherapy for individuals - this means it heals without putting the fault on "you" by compassionately valuing you and your inner systems to the calming seat of existence.
  • Intimacy From the Inside Out (IFIO) Couples / Relationship Therapy.  IFIO assists people to work through difficulty or simply enhance relational quality. I am privileged to offer this fresh and different approach for couples / relationship work, enabling difficult conversations to become both possible, safe and intimate.  I believe, IFIO provides a way to elicit what humans innately crave. IFIO is a unique blend of traditional Imago Therapy fused with "Systemic Ideas" through utilising IFS Practice, with a balancing relational approach.
  • Systemic Practice (BACP Accredited), Post Graduate: Couples and Family orientated approaches in psychotherapy.
  • Systemic Counselling (BACP Accredited), BSc Hons: integrating Vipassana - Mindfulness / phenomenology / Existentialist and Mentalization within Systemic Thinking (The home of Solution Focused Therapy).
  • CBT: Cognitive Behavioural Therapies (3rd Wave / Mindfulness based), studied with a focus on Trauma therapies (TFCBT).
  • Trauma Therapy: "Rewind" practitioner, (trained directly by Dr Muss 2015). An effective way to quickly relieve traumatic feelings.
  • Partswork Rewind Therapy (PRT) development of effective Trauma relief.  
  • Diploma: Systemic Counselling, (Solution Focused constructivist, Modernist strategic / structural, and Post-modern non-pathologising theory - integrating IFS theory and practices).
  • Diploma: Psychotherapeutic Counselling, (Solution Focused, Humanistic, and traditional Cognitive Behavioural Therapies).
  • Integrative Studies: i.e. Three Routes of Counselling (Traditional: Humanistic, Psychodynamic and Rational Emotive Cognitive Behavioural Therapies).
  • Metacognition: Embedding the Self in Culture: Brain plasticity and how to achieve it for self-development at the Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute.
  • Vipassana Practice (Mindfulness stress reduction and coping tequniques): Experiential acceptance and commitment training and consultation. This involves the therapeutic use of "metta balm" consciousness and compassion focused strategies; useful for therapeutic work with craving / compulsion, depression, anxiety and trauma.
  • Relationship Rescue. Workshop delivered ideas and technique for couples counselling.
  • Conflict Resolution Practices. Basic human relations training for both private and social practice (relationship mediation and coaching).
  • EMDR. Workshop for stress reduction by using left and right consciousness'.
  • EFT. Workshop for stress reduction by using meridian points, pressure and the energies contained inside the body.
  • Intrusive Thoughts & The Critical Inner Voice. Workshop influenced by IFS ideas.
  • ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Trained) Suicide Prevention trained + updated.

My Aim

My aim is to allow these factors within counselling sessions to Midful Dialogism (MD) to co-create ways for empathic understandings together with clients unique choices and healing process, as the relational aspects develop.

Member organisations

Registered / Accredited

Registered / Accredited

Being registered/accredited with a professional body means an individual must have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by their member organisation.

NCPS
National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society (NCPS)

The National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society

This Not For Profit association of counsellors and psychotherapists aim to support the counselling profession, members and training organisations.

In 2013 the NCS register was accredited by the Professional Standards Authority under the Accredited Voluntary Register Scheme. Accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.

Accredited register membership

National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society
Accredited Register Scheme

The Accredited Register Scheme was set up in 2013 by the Department of Health (DoH) as a way to recognise organisations that hold voluntary registers which meet certain standards. These standards are set by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).

This therapist has indicated that they belong to an Accredited Register.

National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society

Other areas of counselling I deal with

  • Non-Voyeuristic Counselling (unspeakables),
  • Emotional Dissolution (generating relief),
  • It has all contribute to who I am, but is it really me?
  • Inner children, others - influence bound (burdens).
  • Excessive Shame / Guilt (leagacy narratives).
  • Living with the effects of medical birth,
  • Living with Asthma and / or Allergies.

Fees

£60.00 - £120.00

Additional information

Professional Fees are generally set within the demographic and are negotiable depending on circumstances / availability.

Discounted optionas are usually possible in daytime slots (can be arranged during sessions). Exceptions for reduced fees may be possible (e.g. students).

Sliding Scale: £60-120

Typically sessions are 1 full hour limited duration, but can be negotiated to a suited relational and practical frequency during our meetings.  Extended and back to back sessions can be arranged [discounted rate] to benefit specific contexts such as Single Session Therapy for trauma reconstruction, more deeply focused work, IFS, or confidential relationship workshops - IFIO (workshops are usually held at weekends).

My Services - "individuals & couples"

  • Single Session Therapy, (back to back hours in one session): to attend crisis for individual trauma or for relationship /maintenance / repair workshops  / IFS / IFIO.
  • Short Term Therapy, (up to 6 sessions).
  • Brief Therapy (6-12 sessions).
  • Long-term Relational Counselling (unlimited sessions).

More about my position as a counsellor can be seen on my website link at the top of this page.  Otherwise, please contact me with any queries, conversations outside of simply arranging appointments are chargeable.

Safety: Please be mindful about the disclosure sensitive information within emails / texts.

I feel privileged to work with adults who have made it their own decision to enter a counselling relationship, being useful for their self and relational well-being.


Locations: Online mediums 

Please, clearly state the location that you require, in your email correspondence.

When I work

Please enquire...

Further information

Therapeutic results

  • Therapeutic results come about via Dialogical Mindful Transformation / Therapy (DMT) or with additional experiential practices to free-up the system.
  • The focus can be on a particular issue or with multiple aspects of the relational system.
  • Work with the counsellor and client within a collaborative value-based system.
  • Manifest beneficial results with both males and females of varying ages.

Enhanced Public Child and Adult DBS clearance is in place.

  • Telephone counselling is a last resort option for senior citizens / disabled and in the event of online drop-out.
  • Internet counselling coming soon.

In today’s culture its normal for people to reach a point where they may feel distressed. Life can feel burdened rather than free and calm. On a logical level human beings can argue with our selves that "all should be fine" - yet somehow things can remain with feelings and meanings that suggest things are not right. People can find themselves stressed, having to create new ways to make changes to move away from mental suffering / illness, solve emotional charge, make more sense of their life - or considering themselves relatively healthy simply desire to find something to assist their living existence, with enriched wholesome experience...

It intrigues me how emotive communication can create detachment from, or be attaching towards, a person’s innate vital qualities. The counselling approaches I offer attends and explores these intricacies, experiences, patterns and parts of human experience both at the logical and emotional levels. This means I don't just work with thoughts but also with the contextual aspects that inform a persons thoughts i.e. what generates the thought patterns along with the thoughts themselves. This is to enable clearer listening, understandings, adjustments and the arising possibilities of new found perspectives and inner freedom - differentiated clear awareness.

2 Upper York Street, Bristol, Somerset, BS2

Cardiff, Caerdydd, CF10

Type of session

Online
Home visits

Types of client

Young people (13-17)
Adults (25-64)
Older Adults (65+)
Couples
Organisations
Employee Assistance Programme

Key details

DBS check

In England and Wales, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS, formerly known as CRB) carry out criminal records checks for individuals working with vulnerable groups, such as children. To find out more, visit gov.uk , or contact this professional directly

Currently distance only (no face to face sessions) for minimisation of the spread of CV-19, to assist and maintain systemic function.

Additional languages

English speaking only, apologies.

Social

Martin Linton
Martin Linton