Understanding the patterns underneath the pattern

In 2015, I completed three years of diploma-level training in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy at The Berne Institute in Kegworth, within the professional framework and guidelines of UKATA – the UK Association for Transactional Analysis.

Transactional Analysis (TA) has had a huge influence on the way I work as a psychotherapist.

It helps us understand how our early experiences, relationships and decisions can shape who we become — particularly the roles we take on, how we communicate, what we believe about ourselves and the patterns we repeat in adult relationships.

You might be the capable one who never asks for help. The peacemaker who avoids conflict. The person who automatically takes responsibility for everyone else. Or perhaps you repeatedly find yourself in similar relationships, friendships or situations despite knowing they're not what you want.

Rather than asking “What's wrong with me?”, we become curious about:

“When did I learn to be this version of me and do I still need to be?”

How TA Psychotherapy can help

My psychotherapy approach can help you:

- understand repeating relationship and communication patterns

- recognise roles you learned to play within your family or relationships

- explore beliefs and decisions formed much earlier in life

- understand people-pleasing, perfectionism and over-responsibility

- recognise patterns around conflict, rejection, abandonment and connection

- develop stronger boundaries and greater self-trust

- understand protective behaviours rather than judging them

- create healthier ways of relating to yourself and other people

- discover who you are beyond the roles you've learned to perform

Parts Work & Internal Family Systems principles

Alongside Transactional Analysis, I incorporate Parts Work and principles from Internal Family Systems (IFS).

We can have different parts of ourselves wanting very different things.

One part wants change while another desperately wants everything to stay familiar. One wants to speak up while another keeps the peace. One wants connection while another pushes people away.

Rather than trying to get rid of these contradictions, I'm interested in what each part is trying to do for you.

Often, what looks like self-sabotage makes much more sense when we understand the protection underneath it.

Trauma-informed & nervous system-informed psychotherapy

My psychotherapy work is also trauma-informed and nervous system-informed.

But being trauma-informed doesn't mean I assume everything is trauma.

Experiences can teach our mind and body what feels safe, threatening, acceptable or necessary. Those responses can continue long after the circumstances that created them have changed.

So I'm interested in understanding what happened then, what you learned from it and whether that response still belongs in your life now.

This is particularly important for people who have already done a lot of therapy or personal development.

You may understand your childhood. Know your triggers. Recognise your patterns. Know exactly why you do what you do.

And still bloody do it.

That's where my psychotherapy work goes deeper than insight alone.

We're not trying to erase your history or remove the parts of you that helped you survive it.

We're helping those parts recognise that the job may have changed.

You don't need to become someone new. Sometimes you need to discover who you are when the old roles are no longer running the show.