Johanna Lakin
Member Status: Accredited Professional
Member No: NCS20-02403
Location: Carlisle
A strong relationship is, I believe, what makes therapy, therapeutic. In other words, therapy is about building a trusting and communicative, working relationship. Part of my role is to offer the conditions; empathy, acceptance and genuineness which are at the root of cultivating therapeutic alliance.
By offering these conditions, I will meet you as a whole person and remain open and curious to what you feel you want to bring to the session. I do not perceive myself as the expert of your life, you are. I will encounter you in the sessions, holding my understanding that you are of inherent worth and value.
I work with the belief that your distress does not mean that something is ‘wrong’ with you. Rather I accept that some aspects of your life may feel wrong and psychotherapy feels required to facilitate the changes needed, as exploring this alone may feel overwhelming.
Using your experiences, emotions and thoughts as guides, we can work in a collaborative and creative way, to understand what aspects of your life feel out of balance and incongruent. In order to navigate to a place which feels more aligned to who you are now. We can work towards an understanding of what it actually ‘feels’ like to live with meaning and genuineness.
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I am passionate about continuing our understanding of a non-pathologising approach to distress as well as the evolution of the person-centred approach. My current research article is:
Johanna Lakin & David Murphy (2023) A pilot qualitative study of a person-centered approach to eating distress in women, Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, DOI: 10.1080/14779757.2023.2273474
