The changing power of proven methods and a trusted therapist
I offer clients help with a wide range of personal and professional challenges, thanks to proven therapeutic frameworks.
I help clients and teams to reach their potential by building on their strengths
I use proven therapeutic frameworks like CBT, lifespan integration and PICT to guide clients to achieve their goals through their strengths. The challenges we face together include well-being, career, relationships, motivation, work through traumas, etc.
Our clients are guided through self-reflection with purpose and progress through personal learning pathways.
How I work as a therapist
I help clients with traumas, whether physical, emotional or sexual.
Life can get in the way of people functioning as their best selves. This can generate a certain numbness, a lack of connectivity and feeling with people, family and relationships, or even a deeper sense of disconnect with oneself.
As a therapist, my job is to help with that reconnect.
In the diverse range of therapeutic tools I use, my clients tend to find Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Lifespan Integration, and Parks Inner-Child Therapy (PICT) the most useful, as they reinforce stability and safety.
Besides, I also act as an independent Supervisor for a number of organisations, to offer non-judgmental, apolitical mentoring, support and feedback to their teams. These confidential monthly sessions for front-line workers dealing with trauma – victim support, public protection, sexual assault referral centres, etc. improve mental health and reduce turnover.
During my career, I have worked with police forces, public protection teams, councils and local governments, and most recently extended relations as a Supervisor for the Internet Watch Foundation, Norfolk and Suffolk SARCs, Norfolk and Suffolk Victim Support and the Suffolk Safeguarding Partnership
Throughout my career I have been mentored and taught by some of the great minds in the counselling world: David Acres, Plymouth University; Michael Jacobs, De Montford, Leicester; Mandy Rowland-Smith and Anandi Janner Steffan for Lifespan Integration; and before her death during Covid, Penny Parks, a colleague, mentor and confident for twenty years.
Having their wisdom and experience gives me the humility to acknowledge my own strengths and the certainty that whatever I know, there is always more to learn.
Explaining the methods: CBT, lifespan integration & PICT
We will draw from our experience to help achieve your goals with the approach that’s most suited to you and your situation.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
A proven, scientifically tested psychological treatment, CBT has become a popular approach for a range of challenges and shown exceptional results.
It tackles:
- Unhelpful ways of thinking
- Learned patterns & behaviours
- Learn better ways to cope
Lifespan Integration (LI)
Lifespan integration is a gentle approach based on the mind-body connection which is especially useful with relationship and emotional challenges:
- Anxiety, depression
- Self-confidence challenges
- Positive handling of situations
Parks Inner Child Therapy (PICT)
A combination of play therapy and behavioural therapy, PICT is especially useful to solve for parenting and caregiving goals, improving dynamics:
- Reduce negative behaviours,
- Improve communications
- Encourage better reactions
An introduction to Parks Inner Child Therapy (PICT)
Penny Parks, the creator and author of the Penny Parks Inner Child model sadly died from cancer during Covid lockdown, she was 77. Her legacy of PICT lives on.
In her own healing journey from inter-familial childhood sexual abuse Penny experimented and created conversations between her adult self and her child self. To discover what the child needed to know that a) she was not to blame and b) through constructive dialogue she could heal.
Penny, in her book: Rescuing the Inner Child (Human Horizons series/SouvenirPress) shows how she went about that journey, slowly and deliberately creating a model of
therapy now known as: Parks Inner Child Therapy (PICT).
There are many continuing developmental workshops/trainings none of which introduce the complete model of PICT, enabling the client to finally let go of the blame, shame and guilt from something they had no way of understanding, the gentle seduction and manipulation from the abuser.
Taking all of the above into their adult selves with all of the accompanying problems with relationships, self-esteem, self-sabotage and anger to name but a few.
The PICT model is still evolving, bringing in the understandings that therapists and scientists have about the body/mind connection and the supporting neuroscience behind many presenting illnesses and complications resulting from the abuse be it emotional, physical or, sexual.
In the Counsellors Guide to Parks Inner Child Therapy (Souvenir Press) Penny talks about the work she and her first PICT Trainer, Pamela Sharpe are doing to “continually refine PICT…..and additional skills will be available through the PICT Training Course, the only training course offering the PICT model of Inner Child work.
As a trained therapist, or counsellor looking for support, Penny’s books cover the basic
rapport building enabling the client to begin to understand how to move from ‘Survivor to Thriver’ using a lifeboat analogy to take the client from the relief of being ‘rescued’ to leaving the lifeboat to discover a different way to live the other side of the abuse, ‘Thriving.’
Therapists wishing to assist clients with sexual abuse issues need five major items
resources:
- A comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the abuse experience, symptoms and blocks to resolution
- A gentle approach that does not abuse clients with detailed disclosure. does not require clients to recount and therefore relive past abuse trauma/abuse experiences.
- A therapeutic model effective in changing deep seated, limiting beliefs.
- Effective tools to disconnect blame, guilt and shame.
- And a re-imprinting method that reconstructs a positive parenting experience.
Without the knowledge, gentleness, belief, change, effective blame, guilt and shame, removal plus powerful imprinting methods clients can be hindered by resistance, fear, hopelessness and anger while the therapist is hindered by lack of rapport or knowledge of what step to take next. They can become ‘stuck’ echoing their clients ‘stuckness.’
So, can someone recover from sexual abuse? Some rare individuals recover from an experience of sexual abuse through their own resources. They are usually people who experience fairly positive parenting or had family or close contacts in childhood who
contributed positive information.
Most people need some kind of therapeutic intervention. Therapy models vary in their methods and outcomes:
- Some are focused towards allowing the client to unload whatever information they wish to but avoid being directional. This can be confusing for the client, if they had the answers they wouldn’t be seeking professional help for answers.
- Some focus on the conscious mind – here and now – and do not address past experience offering strategies to assist people to cope with (the symptoms), but not resolve the variety of core problems.
- Some models work solely with the unconscious mind, utilizing various styles of hypnosis to shift current problems.
Working solely through either the conscious or the unconscious mind seldom creates the balance or harmony between those states that is needed for full and lasting problem resolution.
Parks Inner Child Therapy, is a balanced approach that provides therapists, and clients, with a full toolkit that addresses the 5 major resource requirements to efficiently and effectively resolve the issues arising from abuse and trauma.
Therapists have stated that the merits of PICT make it the model they endorse as a successful therapeutic resolution of childhood abuse experiences, as well as most emotional health challenges. So if you’re interested in training to become a PICT
practitioner or to find therapy with a qualified PICT practitioner, do get in touch.
What I help clients with
It always start with what you hope to achieve. We then evaluate if we are a good fit for each other. If we are, we discuss the best way to work together.
Who is Susan Osborne
Susan Osborne is the Director of Anglia Therapy, and one of the top advisors for clinical and private clients, as well as a leading supervisor of therapists and practitioners.
1. Certified therapist
With multiple clinical therapy certifications, Susan is one of the best-certified therapists, coaches & counsellors in the U.K.
2. Work & life
Taking a holistic approach to her client’s lives, Susan looks at their whole lifestyle and how to best achieve their goals at home and at work.
3. Proven methods
CBT, Lifespan Integration and PICT, all of which Susan has vast, certified experience with, are proven methods which can help achieve a variety of goals.