Who I am
I’ve lived in Bristol for over ten years. I’d spent most of my life living in rural Somerset and now frequently question which I consider home. Bristol usually wins for good reason - it’s a fantastic place to live.
I completed counselling training in 2005, and have worked as a counsellor in private practice in Taunton, and also for the charitable sector in North Somerset. I am a registered member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, and also the British Association of Social Work, and have worked as a mental health social worker for the NHS. I have also worked as an Approved Mental Health Professional for the local authority for a time. The majority of my experience is within a community mental health and crisis team setting. I am a clinical lead for a mental health NHS trust, working primarily with complex trauma and personality disorder, and for the same team I work two days a week as a DBT therapist (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy), having completed a two year training through Bangor University, and I will be drawing on this training in my clinical practice which is DBT informed, rather than DBT therapy, due to this model consisting of various parts and functions such as skills groups and consultation teams, which I don’t have access to outside of my NHS practice. I am also trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing).
Throughout my career as a counsellor and a social worker, I have experience of working with people at the most difficult and also the most pivotal times in their lives, and across the lifespan.
Having a double training helps to inform, support and complement my counselling practice. I credit the opportunity to be able to draw on my experience to be able to work with a wide variety of difficulties.
While the scope of what brings someone to therapy is understandably enormous, most commonly this includes:
Bereavement and loss
Depression
Anxiety
Relationship difficulties including domestic violence
Childhood trauma and abuse
I have a particular interest in developmental trauma and recovering from invalidation in the context of personality disorder, and working with emotional dysregulation.
Email: ask@keithconway.co.uk
