Individual Therapy
INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
Trauma therapy and online counselling for personal development.
Are you interested in personal evolution and growth?
At Therapy Tides, we specialise in trauma therapy and can assist with a range of mental health conditions, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, grief, ADHD-and other neurodiversities.
We understand that coming to terms with your trauma must begin by developing a secure base in the present before you can safely approach the past. Change comes in waves in therapy, and we provide a soothing and safe way to navigate important changes.
Your therapist will listen to your goals and use specialist techniques to establish a safe environment where you can feel emotionally validated, recognised, and appreciated. We work with you to understand your unique experience, what it means to you, and how it is manifesting to create distress in your life.
We understand that coming to terms with your trauma must begin by developing a secure base in the present before you can safely approach the past. Change comes in waves in therapy, and we provide a soothing and safe way to navigate important changes.
Your therapist will listen to your goals and use specialist techniques to establish a safe environment where you can feel emotionally validated, recognised, and appreciated. We work with you to understand your unique experience, what it means to you, and how it is manifesting to create distress in your life.
Self Improvement & Personal Development
Working on your mental health in a therapeutic environment with a qualified professional can deliver a range of positive benefits.
- psychological safety and stability
- enhanced self-esteem and trust
- reduced severity of PTSD symptoms
- reestablishment of normal stress response
- deconditioning of anxiety/fear
- processing of emotions and traumatic memories
- recovery from comorbid problems
- maintained or improved adaptive functioning and social relationships
- reengagement in life
- enhanced social support
- developing a relapse prevention plan
- overcoming developmental deficits
- acquiring skills for emotion experiencing, expression, and self-regulation
- restoring or developing a capacity for secure, organised relational attachments
- enhancing personality integration and recovery of dissociated emotions and knowledge
- restoring or acquiring personal authority over the remembering process
- enhancing physical health
What is Trauma Therapy?
At Therapy Tides, we approach Trauma Therapy as a delicate, deliberate, precise, and mindful intervention.
Our approach is to prioritise a strengths and resilience-based philosophy of personal empowerment and self-determination. This means that we work to create an environment where you can take authority over the meaning and interpretation of your personal life history and identify your own needs, preferences, and goals for the future.
We achieve this with active, compassionate listening, which enables open expression and analysis as you begin to work therapeutically through any feelings of confusion, shame, or other suppressed or forbidden emotions that may emerge.
How do I know if I am experiencing trauma?
Trauma presents in a range of ways, some of which may not be immediately recognisable as related to a particular experience or event.
Depending on its severity, trauma can include experiences of dissociation, emotional dysregulation, somatic (physiological) distress, feeling isolated in your relationships or experiencing sensations of spiritual disconnection.
You may find it challenging to engage with positive self-development or that your attachment patterns have altered. Trauma can also emerge as a fundamental sense of betrayal generated by a break in trust in early relationships, especially if the break in trust has been perpetrated by someone close to you.
If you feel like this resonates with you and want help navigating your way forward, we can help.
Why choose Therapy Tides?
Alongside a range of fundamental and specialist qualifications and extensive experience, Paola works from an understanding that psychological trauma is not uncommon and a majority of adults and an important minority of children are exposed to traumatic events.
This understanding is coupled with a heart-centred approach and an ability to shift between modalities to deliver a personalised therapeutic experience. This approach enables you to access the ability to repair and improve your own sense of inner and outer connection.
Approaching each gender, or other ethnocultural, socioeconomic, geographic background, we can guide you through your therapeutic work with cultural competency, starting by establishing a secure and well-bounded connection.
Counselling and therapeutic Sessions are offered in person and Online and can be held in English, Spanish, Italian, or French.
Qualifications & Experience
Paola is an approved member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC). She holds a NZ Master in Clinical Psychology, is certified in Eye Movement and Desensitisation Therapy (EMDR) and in Internal Family Systems (IFS) informed EMDR.
She is a member of the Spanish Federation of Associations of Psychotherapists (FEAP) and is now based in private practice in Blenheim.
Paola successfully works with individuals and couples through her Private Practice. She is also qualified to offer supervision for students and other professionals working in therapeutic and mental health contexts.
Paola has extensive experience in Protection and Social Services as well as in Psychiatric settings. She has worked across Relationship and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, providing assessments, psychotherapy, and formal Family Court reports.
Browse our range of services here.