Michael Swales

I offer a caring and compassionate therapeutic approach focused on relationships, trauma, and recovery. A therapy model based on our relationship with ourselves - and how that plays out in our connection to others. As a result of changes in your perspective through this therapeutic process, you can grow and transform through the awareness, experience and expression of your feelings. Working experientially helps break down barriers to emotional intimacy and can release unhealthy or additive coping strategies. When you heal your trauma, you can discover the ability to choose rather than to react - your vitality returns, allowing you to heal and thrive by experiencing your life fully. By increasing our awareness of the cognitive, behavioural and emotional worlds we inhabit - and working on the relationship between our body and mind, we can improve our self-esteem, release past traumas, and reduce anxiety and depression.

Michael’s own experience of therapy was transformative and taught him how to be present and enjoy life in a way he had not realised was possible. His previous careers were in finance and hospitality until he made the choice to train as a therapist, studying Psychodynamic, Transpersonal and Integrative counselling. He has worked within the NHS, offering outcome-focused, short-term therapy and also with young adults recovering from addictive behaviours in residential treatment.