Sonia St John-James
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
Feeling for a change? How long, despite all your best efforts of ignoring, avoiding or pretending all is well, have you asked yourself 'Why can’t I shake this?’ So, you're ready to rid yourself of the exhaustion that comes from high levels of anxiety (worry, guilt, shame) triggered by memories and current situations that frequently become so overwhelming that you’ve started to do things to reduce the anxiety but realise those efforts create new problems? Then let me help you - I work to facilitate your regulation of the dynamic relationship between anxiety, defences, behaviours and feelings that have become phobic or uneasy over time to bring about greater harmony between them all. With this approach you will learn how to experience a full array of healthy feelings with ease – moving you towards mental and emotional equilibrium.
I am an EMDR Europe Accredited Practitioner (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing). This therapy greatly accelerates the brain's ability to process different traumas, life threatening events and ongoing stressful situations. I have successfully helped mothers who have experienced traumatic births, veterans with combat stress/PTSD and people with problems such as PTSD, road traffic accidents, sexual abuse, rape and sexual assault, burglary, armed robbery, phobias, prolonged grief and attempted murder to name a few.
EMDR is evidence based and has at least ten inter/national guideline recommendations for the treatment of traumas and PTSD including from WHO (World Health Organisation), NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) as well as the NHS.
I trained and qualified as a Couples therapist (evidenced based training program) with the internationally renowned Tavistock) – helping couples understand and navigate through their challenges and work towards repair and greater fulfilment. This was an accredited course and the training is evidenced based and has NHS and NICE recommendations.
Whether your difficulty is to do with your own self-confidence; relationships with others; an event that occurred X number of years ago which continues to haunt; something you have first-hand experience of or something you witnessed – if you hear yourself saying ‘I know logically its over but emotionally it feels as if it happened just yesterday,’ or ‘I need to move on from this, but can’t do it alone,’ then some guided support with your processing could be the ingredient required to get you to a place of ‘feeling a change?’
All the best to you.
Training, qualifications & experience
- 2022 EMDR Child specialist intensive certificate (Trained by Ana Gomez)
- 2020 Couple Therapy for Depression - Tavistock Relationships
- 2020 EMDR Europe Accredited Practitioner
- 2012 EMDR complete 4 part training - Accredited course with EMDR Works
- 2010 MSc in Therapeutic Counselling
- 2007 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling
- 2006 Introduction to Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy
- 1994 BSc Hons in Psychology - London University
Member organisations
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.
BACP is one of the UK’s leading professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy with around 60,000 members. The Association has several different categories of membership, including Student Member, Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP, Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Accred) and Senior Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Snr Acccred).
Registered and accredited members are listed on the BACP Register, which shows that they have demonstrated BACP’s recommended standards for training, proficiency and ethical practice. The BACP Register was the first register of psychological therapists to be accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).
Accredited and senior accredited membership are voluntary categories for members who choose to undertake a rigorous application and assessment process to demonstrate additional standards around practice, training and supervision.
Individual members will have completed an appropriate counselling or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but they won’t appear on the BACP Register until they've demonstrated that they meet the standards for registration. Student members are still in the process of completing their training.
All members are bound by the BACP Ethical Framework and a Professional Conduct Procedure.
EMDR UK
EMDR Europe
Accredited register membership
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.
Areas of counselling I deal with
Other areas of counselling I deal with
Fully trained EMDR therapist.
Therapies offered
Fees
£70.00 - £90.00
Health Insurance/EAP
Additional information
60 min. assessment (phone/in person) - £80
50 min. individual therapy session - £70 weekdays (£80 Saturdays)
50 min. couples session - £80
50 min. EMDR sessions - £90
All payments to be made a week in advance of the session
When I work
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Exceptionally and for only short periods I offer sessions some early weekday evenings/Saturday mornings.
Further information
I am a registered and accredited member of:
the BACP
EMDR UK and Europe
I am a registered therapist with the following health insurers:
Aetna,
Aviva,
AXA,
BUPA,
Vitality Health,
Healix.
