Dr Sheena Macalister


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This professional is accepting new clients but may have a waitlist. Please enquire with them directly to discuss availability.
This professional is accepting new clients but may have a waitlist. Please enquire with them directly to discuss availability.
About me
Hi, my name is Sheena. I am a highly experienced Clinical Psychologist who has worked in the NHS for over 17 years, and in more recent years in private practice.
Over my long career, I have supported hundreds of people in their journey towards understanding and healing the emotional pain and trauma that they have felt burdened with for much of their lives. My practice has developed over recent years towards a more specific clinical focus on applying compassion to heal grief and trauma. My journey and training in compassion-focussed therapy (CFT), in particular, has been transformative for me personally and on a professional level. I have seen the profound positive changes that developing self-compassion can have on clients’ confidence in being able to tolerate and transform overwhelming emotional states.
With a particular grounding in the science of what it truly is to be a human being, with our evolved emotional systems, CFT aims to address suffering in very non-shaming ways. Through the lens of compassion, we can start to understand our emotional pain (including our shame, fears and grief) as meaningful responses to our lived experiences, and as part of our common humanity, rather than seeing our difficulties as being related to something intrinsically “wrong” with the self. In time, being able to relate to our struggles and pain with greater sensitivity can support us to develop the courage to process and be with our more painful emotions. This is opposed to spending our energy engaging in more avoidant or unhelpful ways of reacting to them, which can have harmful impacts on our relationship with ourselves and with others, and our quality of life.
In therapy, I provide a warm, empathic and compassionate space in which we can start to explore your emotional pain and the early conditions and situations which have shaped your difficulties today. Therapy can then develop to support you in developing skills in self-compassion to help you to handle the emotional impact of difficult life experiences with greater courage and self-confidence.
I am also highly experienced in using CBT and ACT and mindfulness-based approaches. Any psychological intervention is based on a shared understanding of the presenting emotional distress and what would most helpfully address this. We work on this together.
All therapy sessions are provided online over Zoom. Over recent years I have found that online sessions can make therapy more accessible to many, allowing people to fit this valuable space into their busy lives, e.g. without having to travel to a clinic to access sessions.
Please do visit my website on which you can find more information about the approach I use in therapy, and links to some helpful compassion-related resources.
Training, qualifications & experience
Qualifications
- BSc(Hons) Psychology
- Doctorate in Clinical Psychology
Member organisations
school Registered / Accredited
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They keep a register of health professionals who meet their standards, and they take action if registered health professionals fall below those standards. They were created by a piece of legislation called the Health Professions Order 2001.
Registration means that a health professional meets national standards for their professional training, performance and conduct.
Areas of counselling I deal with
Therapies offered
Fees
£120.00 per session
Free initial online session
When I work
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