How I Practice

I start from the premise that we all have an inner wisdom calling us to personal truth and congruence. I work at depth, using an integrative, embodied approach to help unlock this guiding energy and awaken its potential. This means that I bring together elements of different approaches to tailor our sessions to your unique needs while paying close attention to our relationship and the connection between mind and body.

Our Work Together

We will start by honouring where you are right now, creating a safe holding space where you can freely share your thoughts, feelings and emotions as they arise. We will explore how these express themselves in your body, and how they might play out in your relationships and your ways of being in the world. We will take time to get to know all the parts that make up who you are so that you can experience yourself more fully and begin to voice your truth in a more productive way, and we will work to identify how your current struggles might reflect past experiences.

Connecting Mind and Body

Understanding your past and the patterns that affect your life is an important step in the therapeutic journey, but healing and growth cannot be achieved through the mind alone. We must learn how to listen to the body’s intelligence, too. So part of our work will focus on tuning into what’s happening for you in the moment: what sensations, unspoken words, urges or impulses might be occurring in response to what is being shared. I will invite you to pause occasionally to notice what is going on for you inside, and together we will reflect on how it is to be in relation with each other, so that you can become more attuned to the ways in which you connect with others and respond physically and emotionally to the things you experience. This growing awareness allows for choice, and choice then provides the opportunity for change.

Getting Creative

If it feels right for you, our work might also involve exercises designed to engage the imagination and let the subconscious speak. This might include mindfulness, guided imagery, drawing, inspiration from the natural world or techniques such as chair work. Or we might just sit and talk and focus on being together, if that is what feels most comfortable for you. The choice will always be yours.

The Maps that Inform my Practice

My approach, though grounded in Psychosynthesis, is strongly influenced by attachment theory, gestalt, interpersonal neurobiology and existential therapy, and I regularly attend trainings and workshops in these and other modalities in order to enhance my practice .

So what does it all mean…

What is Psychosynthesis?

What does Attachment Theory teach us?

Why Gestalt?

How does Interpersonal Neurobiology inform the work?

Why is an Existential lens important?

I was a writer before becoming a therapist, am the mother of three grown up children and the author of several books on child development. My interest in understanding people dates back to my early 20s and my first degree in Anthropology, but it was my own transformative therapeutic journey that prompted me to change careers and train as a counsellor. I wanted to help others the way I was helped. I feel blessed to accompany people on their journeys towards healing and growth, and am passionate about my work, which feels more like a calling than a career.

My Qualifications & Experience

I am a fully qualified, insured member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, with a Masters in Psychology and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Psychosynthesis Counselling, and I hold certificates in both grief- and trauma-informed practice.

Before training at The Psychosynthesis Trust, I spent many years volunteering in mental-health support, working with vulnerable children and adults in hospices, schools, care homes and hospitals. I was a Cruse Bereavement Care volunteer from 2020-2023, supporting people throughout the Covid years, and alongside my private practice I continue to volunteer as a therapist for a charity in Bristol, working with bereaved and terminally ill people.

I can help, and have experience working, with depression, anxiety, grief, childhood trauma, bereavement, end of life, disordered eating, relationship difficulties and much more. If you are currently struggling, have specific issues you want to address, or feel that your way of being in the world is at odds with the way you feel inside, please reach out and let’s discuss your needs.

I see clients weekly, either online, or in person in Orchard Street, BS1 Bristol. Fees are discussed and agreed together during our introductory call. Prices begin at £60 for individuals and £110 for couples, with circumstances and location taking into consideration. It is important to me that longterm therapy be as accessible as possible, so I reserve a few concessionary spaces for those experiencing financial hardship. Please contact me for further details.

To arrange a free introductory call please contact me on:

Email: kkarmiloff@gmail.com

Phone: 07801056998