OTS-Witney Therapy Centre
Oxfordshire Therapy & Self-Development Network: 1-to-1 Counselling & Psychotherapy - Group Therapy & Workshops in Oxford and Witney

Nicola Edmonds
Psychotherapeutic Counsellor

Offering: Individual Therapy
Availability: (Days, evenings) Monday evening (Zoom) and Tuesday evenings (person - Witney)
Fees: £50 (some £35 spaces)
Frequency: Weekly
Location: OTS-Witney Therapy Centre
Also at: OTS-Oxford Therapy Centre

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Approach & Specialist Areas:
I am a qualified Psychotherapeutic Counsellor offering medium- and long-term counselling and psychotherapy for individuals. I have been trained in a combination of approaches including Transactional Analysis, Gestalt, Psychodynamic and Person-Centred approaches.

Background:
I have 35 years of experience of working supportively with people from all walks of life through; one-to-one Coaching, Executive Coaching, Group Facilitation of groups with conflicting objectives, Conflict Resolution, working with vulnerable children and troubled adolescents. I have successfully worked in Corporate, Educational, and Voluntary settings. I have been working with clients for the last five years.

Working in an open and transparent way, I tailor my approach to suit your specific needs. I will provide a calm and reflective environment through which we can be curious and explore whatever it is you need to bring. Working together, we can review how you live and relate to others, both now and in the past, to enable you to make sense of how you are feeling and why, and to locate and develop your natural capabilities to enable you to support yourself better. This will be your space to be listened to, accepted and heard.

I work with:

Della Wolf
Psychodynamic Psychotherapist

Offering: Individual Therapy
Availability: Mon (Oxford), Tues pm/eve (Witney), Wed am/eve (Oxford) Thurs pm/eve (Oxford), Friday (Oxford)
Fees: £60 per session (reduced fee for students & long-term therapy)
Frequency: Weekly
Location: OTS-Witney Therapy Centre
Also at: OTS-Oxford Therapy Centre & Rose House Oxford

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Approach & Specialist Areas:
Psychodynamic therapy has its foundations in acknowledging the importance of the unconscious mind – an understanding of mental functioning that now carries substantial neurological backing. While the brain may have a mind of its own, it is seen to gain individual form largely through relationships, fundamentally during infancy but continuing throughout life. An understanding of both infant and child development is considered essential for adult psychodynamic therapy. Thinking about how the past is influencing the present, and how previous relationships are colouring present experience, is an important part of the therapy. A therapist can help in the work of uncovering the causes of mental and emotional distress, and then support the client in reflecting on ways to repair and to better fulfil their potential.
People I have seen for therapy have had various named conditions – depression, generalised anxiety disorder, emotionally unstable personality disorder, eating disorders, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder etc. Also less medicalised conditions such as low self-esteem, grief, isolation, stress, difficulties with children or partner, etc. These labels of the problems we are aware of have some use, but it is the individual who needs therapy rather than the symptoms. Particularly, in working to fathom the dynamics of the symptoms, the therapy is seeking to understand each person in relation to others. I work one-to-one, in a room kept free from intrusion, either once or twice a week. Working online/remotely became necessary during 2020. Sometimes video work is appropriate, while for others using audio is more effective. This needs to be thought about carefully and negotiated individually. I believe that good therapeutic work can be done remotely but prefer to work in-person for the earlier sessions at least.

Background:
For ten years I worked in a perinatal mental health service in the NHS. This involved therapeutic work with pregnant women as well as with parents and babies. The time of a new baby is often challenging for parental mental health. This is partly because becoming a parent can powerfully re-ignite one’s own early experiences and anxieties. I have found my work with mothers and fathers from varying cultures and backgrounds, varying ages and professions, helpful in developing my understanding of emotional development and disturbance.
I was particularly employed to think with parents about their relationship with their babies and young children rather than teaching them how to parent. Disturbing and disruptive ways of parenting can roll on down through the generations unless there is time to reflect and to challenge reactions that feel instinctive but are actually learnt. For me, having the opportunity to explore and observe these first relationships added to my theoretical knowledge and provided insights into thinking about an individual’s experience of being in the world.

Training & Qualifications:
Masters Degree, University of East London, and the Tavistock and
Portman NHS Foundation Trust: ‘Working with children, young people and
families: a psychoanalytic observational approach’.
Clinical training in psychodynamic psychotherapy at the British
Psychotherapy Foundation (BPF).

Registered Bodies:
British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC)
Member of OTS

Karen Foster
Integrative Arts Psychotherapist

Offering: One to One therapy Individual (Adult)
Availability: Tuesday - Friday (daytime only)
Fees: £45 per hour session
Frequency: Weekly
Location: OTS-Witney Therapy Centre



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Approach & Specialist Areas:
Working within a framework that prioritises the therapeutic relationship my theoretical orientation is psychodynamic and humanistic, underpinned by neuroscience and attachment theories.

My integrative training in both talking and art therapy enables me to combine both approaches. Engaging with creative media as a form of communication allows space for unconscious feelings, which once expressed and given visible form become available for reflection and for new perspectives to form through dialogue.

Background:
I spent 20 years as a partner in a small consultancy practice and became a professional food photographer in 2005. More recently I have worked within the NHS in acute mental health settings facilitating groups and working one to one. Currently, in addition to developing my private practice I continue to work as an Independent Advocate with vulnerable adults.

Training & Qualifications:
MA Integrative Arts Psychotherapy (IATE)
Post Graduate Diploma in the Therapeutic Application of the Arts (IATE)
Children’s Accelerated Trauma Treatment (CATT) Levels 1 & 2

Registered Bodies:
OTS Member
Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) Reg: AS15735
Professional Member of The Institute for the Arts in Therapy and Education (IATE)
Working towards UKCP Registration

Stephanie Davis
Attachment-Based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist

Offering: Individual Therapy, Couples Therapy
Availability: Thursdays (+Abingdon below)
Fees: £65 - £95 per session
Frequency: Weekly or more as needed
Location: OTS-Witney Therapy Centre;
Also at: Abingdon: Mon, Tues


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Approach & Specialist Areas:
As an attachment-based therapist, I view relationships with others as a key part of human development and growth, and understand that disruptions and difficulties in relationships, in both childhood and adulthood, and feelings of isolation can damage our ability to manage our lives and our selves. These disruptions and difficulties can affect us in a variety of ways of which we may be unaware. My work with clients involves facilitating an understanding of how much of one’s behaviour, and way of relating to others, is influenced by processes linked to such disruptions and difficulties. I consider the therapy to be ‘relational’ in that it is an endeavour in which the therapist and client are both mutually engaged and working together to effect change.

I have developed expertise in working with a range of clients from different cultural and national backgrounds with concerns as diverse as depression, anxiety, trauma, eating problems and abuse as well as emotional difficulties and problems of identity and the self. I also specialise in working with the transition to parenthood and issues around PND.

I use the EFT approach when working with couples. Attachment needs are present throughout the lifespan and viewing the adult couple relationship as an attachment relationship offers a perspective which views the difficulties and disruptions as a consequence of couples struggling to have a good enough, supportive attachment with one another. When a couples’ attachment feels insecure it can result in negative cycles of behaviour which prevent them from communication and connecting effectively. Working from this perspective, I endeavour to support couples to identify and understand their negative cycles and support them in unlocking the emotions fuelling this negative cycle to facilitate a move to a more secure and supportive attachment and way of relating.

Background:
Prior to working as a therapist, I worked as a management consultant and also as a research fellow in Education and Psychiatry. As such, I have a keen understanding of the impact of different environments on mental well-being as well as mental health issues themselves. I have worked in the NHS, private practice and with several charities specialising in fostering and adoption, refugees and stroke survivors and their carers.

Training & Qualifications:
Diploma Attachment Based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
PhD Psychology
MA (Hons) Psychology (Cantab)
Emotionally Focussed Therapy (EFT) approach with couples (Marriage Care)

Registered Bodies:
UKCP Registered
Director of the Forum for Independent Psychotherapists (FIP)
Member of TRS (The Relational School)
Member of OPS (Oxford Psychotherapy Society)
Member of OTS