Ellie
Belfield
How I work
Are you curious, thoughtful and emotionally aware?
Perhaps you tend to feel things deeply, overthink your interactions or spend a lot of time wondering whether you said the wrong thing.
Maybe you're interested in understanding yourself and your relationships more deeply, but find yourself stuck in familiar patterns that you'd like to change.
If that sounds like you, we might work well together.
At the core, I'm person-centred and client-led, but that doesn't mean I'll simply sit back and nod.
There will be sessions where I sit with you in something painful, validate what you've been through and give you space to get everything out.
There will be lighter sessions too: we'll probably have a laugh, talk about telly, what you had for dinner, the gym, beauty fads, the weather or whatever happens to come up.
There will be times when I gently challenge you.
Part of my role is to help you notice when your thoughts, assumptions or past experiences might be influencing how you're seeing a situation. Sometimes those conversations can feel uncomfortable. That's okay. Therapy isn't always supposed to feel comfortable.
If I've said something that doesn't sit right with you, I want you to tell me (and how hard that might be isn't lost on me). You can disagree with me, challenge me or come back to something retrospectively. I'll meet that with curiosity rather than defensiveness.
I believe this is part of what makes therapy powerful: having a safe relationship in which you can practise being honest, expressing disagreement and discovering that you don't have to make yourself smaller to remain connected.
Ultimately, I want to help you understand yourself more deeply, develop greater self-compassion and feel more able to live your life on your own terms.
This may be a good fit if you:
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enjoy self-exploration and going beneath the surface
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are curious about your patterns and relationships
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are open to challenge as well as validation
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value emotional depth, honesty and humour
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want meaningful change rather than a quick fix
This may not be the right fit if you:
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aren't interested in self-exploration or open to change
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purely want a space to vent and be agreed with
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don't want to look at your own patterns
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aren't open to having your perspective occasionally challenged
