Sophie Boss

I am a kind, respectful and approachable psychotherapist.  I am committed to providing a confidential and supportive space for you to explore the challenges you are facing in your life.

I have a deep respect for each person's capacity to grow and evolve. I see the process of psychotherapy as a blend of art and science; drawing on our thought processes and our embodied and emotional lives. Psychotherapy invites us to be curious about the conscious and the unconscious, about the embodied and the intellectual, therefore the work is both rational and deeply mysterious.

I see psychotherapy as supporting us to retrieve the lost parts of ourselves, welcoming us back into our physical and emotional bodies, so that we can experience our connectedness to ourselves and others. This process helps us to understand and transform our anxiety, fears, hopelessness or sense of not being enough so that we can live with a greater sense of purpose, ease and contentment.

While our experiences growing up impact and shape who we are as adults, I believe that we all have the capacity for change, through a process of understanding, learning, healing, growth and above all, connection. Therapy can lead to a profound sense of well-being and meaning in our lives. Engaging in this process with me can help you discover who you are, what really matters to you and how you want to be in the world.

My approach to therapy may be right for you if you are willing to be in an open-ended process which evolves and develops over time. My way of working is not best suited to a short-term set of sessions aimed at managing one specific problem or experience. If you feel drawn to exploration, to going on an adventure, one which embraces curiosity, courage, compassion and connection, I may be the right therapist for you. I will share tools and new perspectives with you when you need them, and primarily our work will be a healing adventure rather than a solution-focused cure.

If you would like to find out if we might work well together, I invite you to come for an initial session. This is an opportunity for you to get to know me and how I work, as well as giving me a chance to get to know you and what you want for yourself. After this initial session, you can decide if you would like to continue working with me and we will book a series of sessions. We will review our work together regularly so that you and I both ensure that you are getting what you want.

I work with many professionals, artists and actors who, due to their work commitments, are not able to attend regular weekly or fortnightly sessions. I am open to creating a plan of sessions that works for you and which supports the goals of the therapy.

Walk & Talk

I offer walk and talk sessions on the Heath in Hampstead.

There are many benefits to being with the other-than-human and more-than-human in the therapeutic process and some clients find it easier to talk while they are moving their bodies rather than sitting still in a room opposite the therapist. Some people find it very intense to be in the therapy room and Walk & Talk sessions offer them another way to build a relationship with the therapist and with themselves.

If you would like to arrange an initial Walk & Talk session to see if it's for you, please drop me a line or give me a call.

Couples Therapy

I particularly enjoy working with couples, whatever their struggles. I have worked with couples considering becoming parents, in some cases where one wants children and the other doesn't, and I have supported couples facing challenges with infidelity, commitment, trust, compatibility, communication, parenting, step-parenting, sex and sexuality and separation and divorce.

Psychotherapy Training

I am a tutor at Homa London (www.homa.london) - An organisation offering counselling and psychotherapy training. Are you curious about what it takes to become a psychotherapist?

Are you interested in what makes human beings tick?

Homa's Counselling and Psychotherapy Training will teach you how to work with people so that they feel better about themselves and live more fulfilling lives. As the training is truly experiential this means that you will grow and develop as a professional and as a person in the process.

Visit: https://www.homa.london

* I am a Wild psychotherapist

- I recognise the interdependence of everything that exists
- My work as a psychotherapist is deeply relational
- I acknowledge and respect the role of the other-than-human and more-than-human in the therapeutic process
- I value and support liminality
- I celebrate embodiment as a central aspect of our existence
- I welcome the spontaneous and the unknown, trusting what arises of its own accord
- I seek to transform fear-based defensive practice into undefensive, contact-based, adventurous practice.

Feedback from past clients

Some clients have chosen to write a few words about their experience of working with me, for the benefit of prospective clients. Their testimonials are reproduced here with their permission.

"I have worked with a number of psychotherapists in the past & had rather come to the opinion that talking therapies don't actually change anything, they just keep the problem alive. However, working with Sophie has completely changed my mind!

She is a very gifted therapist and the work we have done together has profoundly & positively changed the way I see myself, others & life in general. The results have been long lasting & life changing.

Sophie is warm, easy to talk to, really knows her stuff & I wouldn't hesitate to highly recommend her to anyone." EE

***

"Sophie's deep care and insight is an absolute bonus to have in my life. I've come to know myself a lot better." TK

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“Sophie’s kind, gentle way and fabulous sense of humour made my first ever experience of counselling a motivational and inspirational experience.  I can’t recommend spending time with her highly enough.”SC

***

"Talking about such personal issues could have been incredibly daunting and difficult but with the help, encouragement and support of Sophie, I found myself opening up in a way I really hadn’t expected.  Years of inappropriate ideas, behaviours and feelings were gently exposed, unravelled and understood and I now feel I have the tools and, most importantly, the courage to help me on my way" CH

***

"Despite Sophie being in London and me in Birmingham I felt sure that a one to one approach was best for me. We worked together between January 2010 and September 2011 and I can say without a shred of doubt it has been the best investment I have ever made in my personal development, and the best gift I could have given myself.

I work as a coach and run a training company and have probably spent £1000s over the years ‘working on’ myself, including 100s of hours of coaching, and whilst I respect and love what coaching can do for people, the therapy I had with Sophie reached the parts other interventions have never been able to…and resolved them.


I travelled from Birmingham once a month to see Sophie for a 90 min session, which worked perfectly for me, giving me plenty of reflection time and opportunity between sessions to do lots of ‘noticing’ Sophie is a wonderful therapist: warm, curious, encouraging, patient, friendly and engaging.

I loved our sessions, every single one, tears and all. I felt absolutely safe and able to explore places emotionally that I had never even thought existed. I felt completely held while I wrestled with some very low points". SV

***

“Before starting sessions with Sophie, I had huge preconceptions (and fears!) about what therapy might entail. To my relief, the 1 to 1 work provided exactly what I needed.

Throughout these sessions, support was key. Sophie was there to guide me through a process that allowed me to reach my own conclusions and decisions. Letting me talk when I needed to or asking questions at just the right moment, Sophie provided a safe environment to work with the issues that matter to me." HB

***

"Sophie was supportive, gentle and challenging all in helpful proportion as I used my relationship with food as a way of exploring other difficulties in my life. One to one work has been a great help and support." SL

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"Sophie taught me some excellent techniques to identify and silence my demons and I looked forward to each session as valuable time out for myself.

Spending time with Sophie really helped me to focus on what was going on in my mind. I felt huge benefits from each session and was able to approach the next couple of weeks with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. The most important thing she showed me was how to be kind to myself and how to gently observe what was going on in my head without judging or criticising"

" RC

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"Walk and Talk with Sophie was really useful as it provided an opportunity to discuss some body issues that I have been wrestling with, in a relaxed way.

This was something which I personally found easier walking around a beautiful place than I might have sitting in a chair! Because I was dealing with life long patterns and challenges the work we did during the walks touched on a range of different feelings and stories from my life.

It is clear for me that Sophie has a wealth of experience in working with weight and body image and all the many many related issues which affect so many women and I found her honesty about that struggle liberating and encouraging.

As a result of our work I identified some new strategies for dealing with patterns which have been with me all of my life. I would recommend working with Sophie wholeheartedly no matter the scale of the issues you want to discuss - I know that she will work with you where you are, at your own pace to help you make the difference you want to see in your life". MAM

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"Sophie facilitates the group with great skill and her instinct is finely attuned to knowing how to guide each of us in the most appropriate way way. The whole evening is always enriching and enlightening." DD

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"I started to see Sophie individually to help my wife and I get though the challenging decision of whether to start a family or not. Our one-to-one sessions were so positive, I soon invited my wife to join the meetings and we began couples therapy with Sophie (these sessions have also been extremely beneficial and fruitful). I have since started a psychotherapy course – with a view to changing my career and becoming a therapist myself. I can honestly say that all these positive developments stem from Sophie's expertise as a therapist. She is indeed warm, thoughtful and respectful, and a great many other positive things too. Thank you very much, Sophie, for being very inspiring in lots of different ways!" DC

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"Sophie is insightful and incredibly sensitive" SM

My personal struggles with parenting and with my relationship with food and my weight brought me to therapy over 20 years ago. The support and growth that I have experienced over more than two decades of personal work and development have been life affirming and have empowered me to be the parent and the woman that I wanted to be.

Working with parents who feel they need support and skills to bring up their children and with women who struggle with their eating and their weight are two of the areas of psychotherapy which I love and specialise in. I have created two programmes specifically for parents and for women and also run workshops on death and dying and self awareness.

Beyond Chocolate - http://www.beyondchocolate.co.uk/

HOMA Psychotherapy Training  https://homa.london - A highly experiential psychotherapy training with a focus on diversity, inclusivity, embodiment and eco-therapy.

I am the co-author of two books; Beyond Chocolate (Piatkus 2006) and Beyond Temptation (Piatkus 2012) both exploring women's relationship with food and body image.

I am a Director and Course Tutor at Homa Psychotherapy www.homa.london. Homa offers a highly experiential training for people who want to become psychotherapists.