How we workA dynamic, individualised, yet highly structured process, starting with somatic therapy, followed by philosophical counselling.
Somatic Therapy is for you if…
You feel overwhelmed, dysregulated or always on edge.
You feel emotionally distant, numb or disconnected.
You experience anxiety, chronic pain, fatigue or other mindbody (psychophysiological) symptoms.
You have low self-esteem.
Your internal dialogue is filled with pressure, criticism and negativity.
You obsess about your looks, always trying to present yourself perfectly.
Your self-worth depends on external validation or status recognition.
You feel like you have no purpose, doing a job just to get by.
You are a people pleaser, having a hard time saying no and setting boundaries.
You don’t experience joy or fulfilment in your life, even though things are going “well”.
You keep finding yourself in unhealthy relationship patterns (intimate, family, friends, colleagues).
You are hyper-independent and being vulnerable feels weak, scary or impossible.
You have a hard time opening up to real connection, intimacy or love.
You tend to overthink and ruminate over past events or what you could have done differently.
You get triggered easily, acting out of alignment or proportion.
You are living a life that doesn’t feel truly yours.
What happens in a Somatic Therapy session?
Although talking plays an important role in somatic therapy, it’s not the priority. We will focus on attuning to bodily cues, sensations, emotions, tensions or aches, following your bodies patterning, pace and readiness.
We will move through a uniquely tailored but sequential approach, blending various somatic practices; nervous system regulation techniques, self inquiry, breathing, movement and touch.
This approach creates the right conditions for you to safely process your emotions, integrate past experiences and re-pattern your nervous system.
How can Somatic Therapy help you?
You will learn to ‘teach’ your nervous system new ways of interpreting the world; establishing a more systemic sense of safety and resilience in the process.
You will learn to identify your triggers, patterns and conditioned behaviours more easily.
You will learn to stay present through difficult sensations and emotions.
You will learn to self-regulate, both proactively and reactively.
You will learn to inhabit your body, space and time on your terms.
You will learn to feel freer and less inhibited by your past conditioning and limiting beliefs.
After some time, we typically recommend a little philosophía.
It is, however, entirely your choice where you start.
Philosophical Counselling is for you if…
The world isn’t making sense.
You feel locked into a trajectory not of your choosing.
You worry about the future.
You feel there is a disconnect between what you value and how you act.
You are unsure what it is you truly value.
You don’t know which beliefs are yours or simply the beliefs you have inherited.
You feel disconnected from the people around you.
You feel disconnected from the more-than-human world.
Life feels less than truly meaningful on more occasions than you care to admit.
There’s no higher purpose that genuinely enlivens you.
You feel stuck in a job, or worse, feel a strong sense of moral dissonance at work.
When you attempt to envisage the future, very little comes to you.
You feel like you have limited agency, authority or authorship in your life.
The creative capacities of your being feel stifled.
You don’t trust yourself to face life’s inevitable difficulty with courage.
Your capacity for criticality and reasoning aren’t quite serving you the way you’d like them to.
You are truly excited by life’s big questions; What is real? What can be known? What truly matters? How should I act? How can my capacity for both abstract thought and concrete action serve a whole far greater than myself?
What happens in a Philosophical Counselling session?
A philosophical counselling session is a dialogue; a journey towards shared meaning. The process requires each party to pay attention, listen deeply and respond thoughtfully.
The counsellor’s role is to attune, deliberately question, and productively challenge. Through the process of doing this, your ideas are tested, broken down, tested again, and refined in a process that leads to anything from a deep recognition of uncertainty (which is entirely okay. A wonderfully refreshing point from which to begin a new process of exploration that serves your life) through to a crystal clear idea that might now shape your entire being going forward.
If you opt for an individual session, you can focus on any topic, challenge or insight of your choosing. The counsellor will employ diverse approaches such as Socratic Dialogue, Values Clarification, Existential Inquiry, Conceptual Analysis, Critical Reflection and Thought Experiments to help you navigate.
If you opt for the SMILE_PH Method (Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health) developed by Prof. Luis de Miranda, over the course of 8 sessions we will progressively explore your relationship to your body, your sense of self, your sense of belonging, your sense of the possible, your sense of purpose, and finally, the philosophical process and structure that brings the 5 previous topics together. This often takes its form in the Tetractys of Philosophical Health (Miranda).
How can Philosophical Counselling help you?
Every person’s philosophical journey is entirely unique. What is universal, however, is that this is a meaning-making process likely to enhance the coherence of your thoughts, your speech and your actions. Your thoughts. Your speech. Your actions. This is a process that can inspire and empower you to live with greater authoricity; a healthy, dynamic combination of authenticity, authorship and authority (Miranda). And it’s a process that often proves to existentially enliven people in ways they were previously unaware of.
It has been claimed that philosophical health will be to the 21st century what mental health was to the 20th. Let us work together to see if that proves true.
Why ioēs
Somatic therapy helps people heal emotional wounds, build the capacity to meet life’s difficulties, and exercise greater freedom. Whereas philosophical counselling helps clarify values, clearly articulate a life purpose, and develop strategies for living a truly meaningful existence.
Philosophical counselling cannot support the re-organisation of the nervous system. Somatic therapy can. Somatic therapy doesn’t clarify meaning, purpose and values that can be consistently acted up. Philosophical counselling does.
Together, we believe these approaches can serve you in navigating life’s beauty and difficulty with patience, kindness, courage, resilience and coherence.