Therapist area
Alev Butun
I am a registered member of the BACP, hold a postgraduate diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy and Counselling, gained from the School of Psychotherapy and Psychology at Regent’s University, London.
Over the past 15 years I have worked in a variety of educational and voluntary settings including as school and college counsellor, working with adults and children with learning difficulties and their families. I also worked at a Women’s Centre, where I supported women around domestic violence, relationship issues, trauma, physical, sexual and mental abuse through 1:2:1 counselling.
I use techniques drawn from psychoanalysis, humanistic and existential therapy, inspired by your specific life experience, personality and holistic self. I also work in an embodied way, supporting you to become aware of how your emotional and psychological challenges are experienced in your body, as a way to reach and heal the root of your issue. This could include bringing awareness to the specific sensations, movements or gestures in the body and supporting breathing and body techniques. I aim to incorporate all levels of your experience, the physical, mental. emotional and spiritual, the whole of who you are as a person. When relevant powerful techniques such as Neuro-linguistic Programming, guided meditations and mindfulness are employed.
My intention as a therapist is to offer you an empathic, accepting space where you can express yourself, understand unconscious patterns that are creating unhappiness in your life, reconnect with your true authentic self and develop greater self-awareness so you can move towards your desired life with power and purpose.
Being from a minority culture and having worked with many people from diverse communities, I can understand at a deep level what it means to be different, feel isolated, and not belong, as well as how important it is to be given a space for expression of our differences and cultural backgrounds and build our sense of belonging. I appreciate that these experiences have enabled me to provide this space with sensitivity.
I work at Spiral on Monday evenings.