Karen Woodley - Psychotherapist

Hello

I’m Karen

I am delighted that you have found me and are considering taking that first step to get the help you need. Here is a little about me and the way I work. I am highly trained and passionate about mental health, offering therapy tailored to each unique person. My approach is compassionate and rooted in the belief that meaningful change is possible when people feel seen, accepted entirely, and empowered.

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A bit about my career as a therapist

My career began as a movement psychotherapist in 2013, working with young children and adults who experienced emotional difficulties and challenging behaviours. I worked on projects with primary schools in Swansea and London, as well as with the National Autistic Society, Mind, Parkinson’s UK, and Swansea University. Additionally, I supported ethnic minority women in Cardiff through collaborations with the British Psychotherapy Association, among others.
Working for a Welsh Charity (Two Rhythms – formerly Touch Trust) for a decade, specialising in creative programmes of communicating through touch, music and movement with people who had a diagnosis of Autism and people with profound physical and learning disabilities as a session leader and then as their membership, training and designated safeguarding lead.
I had a post for eighteen months in a low-secure forensic unit in Cardiff, working with young adults, and then, in 2015, I began my private practice. Today, my approach is shaped by my training in person-centred counselling, movement psychotherapy and high-level clinical training in Transactional Analysis (TA)

A bit about my training

Person centred counselling is a humanisitc approach to therapy that recognises that you know what hurts you and what direction to go, what problems are crucial and what experiences have been deeply buried (Carl Rogers) and that it is through the therapist being open and real in her/his/themselves and able to understand deeply what is going on with the client and offering a non-judgemental space of full acceptance that change takes place.
Movement psychotherapy recognises that non-verbal communication, which accounts for around 55 per cent of communication, cannot be ignored because we are our bodies. Coming home to the body, the words of the body, the vibration of the body, the silence of the body; the micro-movements of the body, the needs of the body; the body-self, we can reach more profoundly, a more powerful change.
Transactional Analysis is a psychotherapeutic approach that helps individuals understand how they work and relate to others. It explains the complex voices we all hear act out:

  • The Parent Ego State represents the beliefs that we inherit from our families and culture. The behaviours, thoughts and feelings that parents, parental figures or significant others have introjected.

  • The Adult Ego State is the behaviours, thoughts, and feelings that directly respond to the here and now, and this Ego State is fluid, full of energy, and open to growth.

  • The Child Ego State represents how we have reacted to these beliefs and the situations we have been through, such as traumatic experiences and unmet needs and how we have adapted.

    With curiosity, compassion, and sensitivity to the body-mind-heart connection, I welcome you to my practice. I am a member of the United Kingdom Association of Transactional Analysis (UKATA), the European Association of Transactional Analysis (EATA), the International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA), the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS), and the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), and I am committed to ongoing professional and personal development

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Qualifications

My Qualifications are

 

    • I have a Master’s in Movement Psychotherapy – Canterbury Christchurch University
    • I am a National Counselling Psychotherapy Society-accredited. Counsellor
    • I have a Diploma in Advanced Counselling Supervision accredited by NCPS
    • I have a Diploma at level 7 in Psychotherapy using Transactional Analysis

My ongoing Professional Development Training includes

  • TA 101 – TACymru
  • Tending to trauma and the trauma pathway-BdT Trauma Recovery Training & Consultancy
  • Certificate in working with trauma- Becoming Ubuntu
  • Working with the Traumatised Inner Child (C-PTSD)- Becoming Ubuntu
  • Couples Counselling – Gloucestershire Counselling Service
  • Eco-Therapy’ working without walls’-TACymru
  • Child Sexual Abuse and how to work with Survivors- NCPS
  • Working with the dynamics of shame- Carolyn Spring
  • Working with survivors of Narcissistic and Emotional Abuse
  • Working with grief and Loss
  • Energy psychology training
  • Internal Family systems
  • Family Constellations
  • Mental Health Familiarisation training