Sophie Demuth

When we first meet, I want to get to know you as a person and understand what has brought you to therapy.

We may explore what is happening in your life now, what you have already tried, your relationships, your childhood experiences and the things you would like to change.

I’m also interested in how easily you can recognise and express different emotions, what you see as your strengths and where you feel less confident.

Just as importantly, I want to understand whether we can communicate comfortably and whether my way of working feels helpful to you.

An engaged, exploratory conversation

I aim to be warm, present and encouraging in the therapy room.

I won’t leave you sitting in silence for long periods without support. I’ll give you space to think and explore, but I’ll also ask questions, reflect back what I’m hearing and sometimes offer an observation or interpretation.

If I notice a connection between something happening now and an earlier experience, I may invite you to consider it with me.

At times, I may gently challenge a belief or recurring pattern. At other times, the most useful thing may be to give you space to sit with a feeling and understand it more fully.

You can lead the conversation, but you don’t have to arrive knowing exactly what to say. If you’re unsure where to begin, I can help us find a starting point.

We’ll agree goals at the beginning of therapy and revisit them as our work develops. Where useful, I may also use questionnaires or simple measures to help us reflect on how you are feeling and whether therapy is helping.

Understanding patterns that keep returning

When a difficulty happens repeatedly, I’m interested in what the pattern may be telling us.

Perhaps you find yourself drawn to similar relationships, reacting strongly to particular situations or repeating behaviours that leave you feeling disappointed in yourself.

Rather than focusing only on stopping the behaviour, we can explore what happens before and during it, the feelings involved and what the pattern may have meant or achieved for you in the past.

We may consider earlier relationships, beliefs about yourself, familiar roles you find yourself taking or ways of protecting yourself that no longer seem helpful.

I sometimes use approaches such as ego-state work, Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed exploration and Gestalt chair work to help you consider different feelings, perspectives or parts of your experience.

If you come to therapy with a specific current difficulty, we may begin more directly with what is happening now and what you need. We don’t have to explore your past immediately unless doing so becomes relevant.

Making sense of the past without being defined by it

My work is primarily exploratory.

I’m interested in how experiences can influence the way we see ourselves, what we expect from other people and the choices we feel able to make.

Some of these connections may already be familiar to you. Others may become clearer through our conversations.

The purpose of exploring the past isn’t to remain there. It is to develop a fuller understanding of yourself and consider whether familiar patterns still serve you — or whether there may be other ways to respond, relate and live.

HOW MY THERAPEUTIC APPROACH SHAPES THE WORK

I am an integrative psychotherapist, meaning I draw on several therapeutic perspectives and adapt the work to the person in front of me.

Psychodynamic and relational approaches

These form an important part of my work.

We explore how earlier experiences, particularly relationships and attachment, may influence your feelings, beliefs and relationships today.

This can be useful when you recognise a pattern but cannot understand why it keeps returning.

Transactional Analysis and ego-state work

These approaches help us consider the different ways we respond to situations and the familiar roles or patterns we may move into.

We might explore whether an old way of relating is still influencing how you respond to other people now.

Gestalt approaches

Gestalt work brings attention to what you are experiencing in the present.

At times, I may use exercises such as two-chair or empty-chair work to help you explore feelings, conflicts or different perspectives that are difficult to express through conversation alone.

Existential psychotherapy

This allows us to explore broader questions about meaning, freedom, responsibility, choice, relationships and the passage of time.

These questions can become particularly important during periods of change or when someone is reconsidering what they want from life.

Person-centred and practical approaches

Empathy, attentiveness and the therapeutic relationship are central to my work.

Although I am primarily exploratory, I can also draw on practical interventions, including elements of CBT, when they are relevant to a particular difficulty.

I don’t expect every client to need the same approach. The balance can evolve as we get to know each other and as your needs change.