Katie Long

When you come to see me it can be normal to feel anxious or awkward, coming to see a therapist or a new therapist, for the first time,  and so in our initial session I ask you some questions to get to know what's going on for you and I can answer any questions you have about my approach and how I could work with you.  

Adults, adolescents and parents with their children can work with me.  I can offer parent support groups where I combine teaching therapy skills and therapeutic support to help heal parent child relationships.  

I am trained also as a creative arts supervisor and can work with counsellors, therapists and teachers to help them gain more understanding of their clinical work.

Face to face or online work is available. 

Here is a little more detail about how I work..

Adult work

In 1-1 work I provide a confidential space for you to explore the issues you bring.  I listen with empathy and compassion, offering you an opportunity to be seen and heard so that you can meet more your authentic self.  I spend time getting to know you, what your hopes and fears are, and as we build trust so our relationship strengthens.  Within this relationship, I can help you get closer to your self, and help you uncover reasons behind your issues and so bring healing and ease. 

In our sessions, I sit with you and witness how you are, allowing time for you to tune into your feelings.  Feeling tired, sad, worried, frustrated, disappointed or even unsure of how you are feeling are some examples of what can emerge.  Becoming aware of our feelings, our thoughts, our physical sensations can provide us with a signal to see what's there and bring greater understanding.   

If you would like to work with the creative arts we can use them as a way for you to tell your story and uncover insights around it.  Here are some examples below to give you a sense of how -

• metaphorically using stories you know, where you choose a character that resonates or you create your own story....allowing you to recognise your feelings through a fictional character or metaphor
• using movement, where you embody a feeling or a character or you talk and then chose to move and notice what this reveals to you about yourself
• creating your own sculpt or world with objects to understand better your inner world,  or using art materials to explore thoughts and feelings

There is absolutely no need "to be good at" art or "to be creative" as there is no right or wrong in how you express yourself.  And it is quite ok to use the sessions to talk and use these methods if or when they may be needed to feel deeper into something that is hard to find the words for. 

Exploring our inner emotional world through talking and imagination allows parts of it to be seen and made less unfamiliar.  Once an idea, a memory, a feeling or thought is conscious, there is more choice about what can be done with it. Reactions and behaviour can gradually be understood and so changed. 

Parent and child work

In parent and child work I meet with you, the parent or carer, and usually take 3 or 4 sessions to assess the presenting issues and teach you some basic therapy skills and tools and strategies relevant to your unique situation.    I then welcome you and your child together and we run 6-8 child-led play based therapy sessions where I gradually sit back and let you facilitate practicing the skills you learnt with me,  providing you with phone support afterwards.  We then transition this process into your home where I help you set up half an hour weekly play sessions to continue this input (with phone supervision if needed).  The aim of this is to use the most valuable relationship your child has for healing - that is his/her relationship with you.  Once a relationship between parent and child has been given more attention, often the child's difficult behaviours melt away as the child's basic need to feel connected to caregiver is met and they feel better about themselves, more confident, more at ease and joyful.  Once a relationship is strengthened between parent and child, the child is more resilient when life gets tricky, which can be the nature of life at times!

Children and young adults

I also work 1-1 with children and young people.  I can work online or face to face with adolescents and face to face with children 12years and under. Dramatherapy allows children and adolescents for whom verbal methods alone may be insufficient, to safely explore issues and painful feelings, be it anger, frustration, or refusing to talk etc.  They can express themselves through action in art such as collage making, or play, movement, story, or creating characters to process difficult or confusing events that may have occurred.  

I charge £50 per session with possible concessions based on individual need.