Kate Winter Psychotherapy

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Kate Winter Psychotherapy

I am a Psychodynamic Therapist and Yoga Teacher based in Brighton and Hove. My mission is to help people transform trauma and feel more at peace in their lives.

30/06/2025

Signing off for maternity leave until January 2026!🤰🏼

I won’t be using this account until I return to work, so please contact me at kate@katewinter.co.uk with any client or collaboration enquiries. 💻

With love and gratitude to my clients and colleagues for their well wishes over this special time. 💛

18/10/2024

I was 21 years old when I trained as an ‘Achieving Best Evidence’ police interviewer (back when it was called a ‘Vulnerable and Intimidated’ victim/witness interview). 👮🏼‍♀️

Over the course of ten years I interviewed hundreds, if not thousands, of children and vulnerable adults who had suffered the most horrific events. It’s probably my proudest work. 💙

During my training I remember being told this statement: If you listen, you will hear. If you hear, you will remember. The idea was that you don’t take notes during the interview. To collect the best evidence, one must learn how to listen.👂🏻

This phrase now comes up frequently when I’m working with clients in psychotherapy. By truly listening to both the subtle and the more obvious content, I can hear them. 🤍

This experience of being heard (which, of course, connects to being “held”) is not only deeply reassuring for the client. It also enables me to remember, and thus gives the client an even greater sense of me “keeping them in mind”. 💭

Are there any phrases or mantras that have stuck with you over the years? I would love to hear… pun accidental!

16/10/2024

In my clinical practice I take (what I perceive to be) an alternative approach to trauma. Instead of thinking about trauma as something that needs to be “healed”, I prefer to think about trauma as something that can be “transformed”. 🕊️

To varying degrees, we all experience trauma. The story of trauma that is told through the character of Arthur Fleck (or Joker) is deeply sad, deeply relatable. This movie therefore reminded me of the ways trauma – in all its forms – affects us.

🃏Trauma affects and shapes our identity (or in some cases, identities).
🃏We seek out others, both consciously and unconsciously, who relate to and reinforce our trauma.
🃏We repeat traumatic experiences to remember, and ultimately to provide an opening to work through.
🃏 Humour is a powerful defence mechanism.
🃏 Hospitalisation can be a help. And (spoiler alert!), hospitalisation can be a hindrance.

As an aside, did anyone else miss the memo that this movie was going to be a musical?! 🎶

12/10/2024

Some useful questions for therapists when your clients tell you (often fascinating!) stories… 🧐

✔️ Where does the patient situate themselves in the story?

✔️ Who do they, and the other characters, represent in the story? (Often a parent or a part of themselves).

✔️ What is it that they are seeking from me by sharing the story?

These simple questions can help shift us from CONTENT into MEANING MAKING.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions in the comments! ⤵️

09/10/2024

Jacques Lacan on Anxiety, written in 1956 in “Fetishism: The Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real”.

🤎

04/10/2024

What does “containment” mean to you? 💭

It’s a word that once belonged in the texts of Bion and his successors. It belonged in the minds of analysts, weaving its way into their work with patients. 🛋️

But in the age of social media and an increasing interest in psychology and mental health, it’s a term that’s now widespread. It pops up in office spaces, in yoga rooms, and probably on dating apps! 🫠

I’m not here to say that those spaces can’t be containing. But I’d like to point out the nuance of the term. To indicate – as much as one can on this platform – that containment is something relating to the UNCONSCIOUS. That it is not a person or a place, but a beautifully crafted process that carries with it the profound possibility of unexplainable change. 🦋

Let me know your thoughts and experience of containment (or the opposite!) in the comments below. 👇🏻

01/10/2024

Paralysis. 🧊

The feeling of immobility, stuckness, stasis. As we enter a new month, a new moon, a time of darkness, paralysis is a recurring theme in my work this week. 🌑

The inclination might be to resist. To push back against the part of oneself that wants or needs to stay frozen. Instead, I give you (and me! 😉) permission to hit the pause button. To use this time to nourish the parts of oneself that need to curl up under a blanket and rest. To leave the ‘to do list’ untouched, even just for a day or two. ✔️

When the urge comes to move, which it ultimately will, do so ‘bit by bit’. One day at a time. One task at a time. One asana at a time. 🩶

If you feel called to move this Moon Day (Wednesday 2nd October), I have two yoga classes on offer. I am teaching a dynamic Ashtanga vinyasa class at 7.15am, followed by a slower, beginner friendly class at 9.30am upstairs in Five Ways. I hope to see you there! 🧘

24/09/2024

I don’t often ask for client testimonials. The work is about them, not about me. 🌸

But sometimes it can be good to hear what works, what doesn’t work, and to ultimately think with the client about what this means for them. 🧠

Here are a few testimonials* from clients I have had the pleasure of working with. A therapy client, a yoga student, and a corporate colleague. 🩷

If you are interested in working with me please click the link in my bio. You can also practice with me at my NEW yoga class starting on 02.10 - see my pinned post for more info. 🧘🏼‍♀️

*all testimonials have been shared with prior agreements from the individual.

20/09/2024

Thank you to my latest business enquiry (see slide 5) for inspiring this post. 💅🏼

17/09/2024

🚨 New class announcement! 🚨

I’m thrilled to say that I will be teaching a new yoga class upstairs starting on 2nd October.

Swipe ➡️ for more information and feel free to contact me if you need further information.

P.s. BYOM (bring your own mat)! 🧘🏼‍♀️

09/09/2024

“Therapists who can work effectively with the basic emotions – reframing and recontextualising hurtful memories so they can be reconsolidated in the context of positive feelings – may be able to promote more lasting therapeutic change.”

Jaak Panksepp - Neuroscientist and Psychobiologist.

Drop a ❤️ in the comments if you think he might be right!

Address

Phoenix Therapy Practice
Brighton And Hove
BN31TE

Website

http://www.katewinter.co.uk/

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Santuário Salon
39 Sillwood Road

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