Lewis Etoria Psychotherapy and Counselling

01/05/2026

Hi All - I'm a local psychotherapist in training offering in-person sessions in the Hartsholme area.

I currently have a few spaces available for new clients.

I work relationally, focusing on the underlying patterns in your feelings and relationships that can make you feel stuck.

If you'd like to contact me to discuss if I can help or to book a session you'll find more details on my website or Psychology Today Profile, or you can message me directly on here.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/profile/1579519

https://www.lewisetoriatherapy.co.uk/

08/04/2026

Understanding that therapy can protect their dignity.

08/04/2026

✨ Grief has a way of bending time.

I don't know about you, but I think, and feel
that grief doesn’t move in a straight line, and it certainly doesn’t stay politely in the present. It drifts. It loops. It pulls us into memories we thought had settled, shakes something loose in the middle of an ordinary day, or suddenly reminds us of a future that will look different now.

Some moments bring a rush of longing for what was.
Others highlight the weight of what is.
And sometimes it’s the ache of what will never be that catches us off guard.
None of these moments mean we’re “back at the beginning.”
They’re simply part of loving someone who isn’t here in the same way anymore.

If your grief has been time‑travelling lately into the past, the present, or the imagined future, I hope you can meet both it and yourself with gentleness. There is no right pace. No correct direction. Just the ongoing, human work of carrying love in a world that keeps moving.

26/03/2026

This is just a picture of me being a person. Or a picture of me just being a person. I don't remember what song I was listening to but I do remember that this was a peaceful moment for me. I remember that I was having a rare snapshot of being me without feeling in a role. Not a therapist or a dad or a son. Not an employee or a manager. Not someone with anywhere to go or anything to do. Just a person, meeting the sun after a long, long winter and listening to an absolute banger. I will be finding what time I can to do more 'person-ing' this spring!

24/03/2026

Think about someone who has recently gotten under your skin.

Maybe they talk over people.
Or they never take responsibility.
Or their need for validation feels endless.
Or there's just something about them you can't name, but it lingers.
It's okay. We all have that person.

But Jung would lovingly ask you to sit with one question…
Why does it affect you the way it does?

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."

Not as an accusation. Not as a verdict.
But as an invitation.

Because your deepest irritations are rarely just about the other person. They're quiet signals. Little arrows pointing inward, toward something tender, something unfinished, something you tucked away so carefully you forgot it was still there.
Perhaps you learned that needing attention wasn't safe. So you folded that need small and put it away. And now, watching someone else wear it so openly… something stirs. Something that feels like judgment, but aches a little like longing.

Perhaps you became the steady one, the responsible one. And someone who shrugs off accountability doesn't just frustrate you. They touch something much older than this moment.

The irritation is a messenger.
And it deserves more than dismissal.
Jung called this the shadow. The tender, forgotten parts of ourselves we didn't feel safe enough to keep. Not because they were bad, but because at some point, they felt like too much. So we set them down. And then we lost track of where we left them.

Until someone else picks them up and carries them right in front of us.
This isn't about turning every frustration into a therapy session. And it's certainly not about excusing what isn't kind.
It's simply about getting curious before getting reactive.
The next time someone unsettles you more than seems reasonable, hold that feeling gently.

Where have I felt this before?
What part of me does this remind me of?
What might I be ready to finally see?

Because sometimes the people who irritate us most are carrying something back to us. Not to hurt us.

But because some part of us has been waiting, quietly, to finally bring it home.

23/03/2026

Back from another incredible training weekend in Scarborough. There is so much to reflect on after 3 days of intense training, but today I’m mostly feeling grateful to be training alongside such amazing colleagues and friends.

17/03/2026

17/03/2026

Lois Tonkin's growing around grief model has helped bring meaning to my own experience of grief and loss.

In experiencing a significant loss, the idea that feelings of grief can become smaller over time can sound hollow.

In Tonkin's model the grief does not change in size over time but the person can grow around it.

The wound scars and stays the same size, which for me honours the meaning that the person or experience had for you, but you can move forward with the scar.

In my own grief, this has helped me to move forward while holding what I’ve lost closely.

I don’t think we should judge the way that other people grieve. What we can do is support them to honour their loss in the best way they can that supports them to live their lives. This might look messy, loud or strange to others, but to support people through loss means respecting their own way of processing what has happened to them.

10/03/2026

It's hard to say exactly what will happen in your therapy when you first arrive. You may have a specific goal in mind or a problem that has brought you here.

As the work unfolds however, other things may begin to emerge. You may discover old needs and feelings that you had forgotten. You may start to see connections between what is happening to you now and what has happened in your past.

While psychotherapy can help you to work through things in your life that are causing you pain, it is also about discovering more of yourself. And because all people are unique and full of intricacies, it's impossible to know for sure what you'll discover.

04/03/2026

🫵 Becoming Ourselves..... again and again

If life were a book, becoming yourself would be the story that threads through every chapter. Each season would turn a new page, revealing a layer you didn’t know you were ready to meet. Some chapters would be soft and sun‑lit, others heavy with underlined sentences and footnotes full of questions. Yet, all of them would be necessary to the plot.

Perhaps you would meet earlier versions of yourself the way you meet characters who shaped the beginning of the story. As the narrative deepened, you’d notice how each chapter brings you closer to a voice that feels more your own, more honest, more rooted.

Therapy offers a time and place dedicated to reflecting on your lifelong manuscript of becoming. Within that space maybe some it can be revised, expanded, and deepened - what do you think?



Thanks

18/02/2026

We often label behaviour as good or bad — but behaviour is actually communication.

A calm child has the skills (in that moment).
A dysregulated child is still learning them.

Your role isn’t to judge the behaviour —
it’s to guide the skill.
✨ Regulation
✨ Problem-solving
✨ Repair

That’s how change happens.

👉 Instead of asking: “Why are they behaving like this?”

Try: “What skill do they need right now?”

💛 You’re not raising a “good” child.
You’re raising a capable one.

Follow for realistic, skill-based parenting support
🔗 www.thetherapistparent.com