About me and my qualifications

Most of the people I work with managed on their own for a long time and came only once that stopped working. They usually arrive with a history of trying to handle it by themselves and a conviction that they should have been able to. I do not think they should have — what they went through called for conditions that were not there at the time.

A good deal of my attention goes into understanding properly what someone is bringing. That sounds obvious, but it is often the hardest part of the work: many people reach a consulting room after years in which what they were living through was named as something other than what it felt like from the inside. This is why most of my training has gone into recognition — the assessment of trauma-related disorders, dissociation, and what the body does in place of memory.

I also try to be straightforward about where a method has solid grounding and where it does not yet. The same goes for my qualifications — below I say where you can check them.

How I work

Trauma therapy today rests on two things, and both are needed.

The first is method: structured, tested in research, with a clear course. EMDR is such a method — it is known what happens in a session, why, and in what order. Without that, work on trauma can be ineffective and at times risky.

The second is understanding. Not every difficulty can be reduced to a single memory that need only be processed. Very often what someone brings repeats in relationships — including in the relationship with me — and only then becomes visible. This is what classical psychodynamic psychotherapy teaches, and it is what I trained in at Collegium Medicum of the Jagiellonian University.

Method without understanding stays at the level of the symptom. Understanding without method can run for years without visible change. I work with both.

In practice this means I do not stay silent and leave you guessing what we are doing. I say where we are, what I am proposing and why — and I do not assume in advance that therapy has to take years.

I am in regular supervision. That is not a formality; it is a condition of this work being safe for the person on the other side.

Training and certification

• psychology — SWPS University
• two full psychotherapy trainings:
  • Collegium Medicum, Jagiellonian University — psychodynamic, accredited by the Scientific Section of Psychotherapy of the Polish Psychiatric Association
  • School of EMDR Psychotherapy
• certified psychotherapist of the Polish EMDR Therapy Association
• recommended therapist of the Polish EMDR Therapy Association
• European Certificate of Psychotherapy
• EMDR Europe Accredited Practitioner
• psychotraumatology — SWPS University
• clinical sexology — SWPS University

Specialist training

I have trained directly with people who shape the contemporary approach to trauma.

Complex trauma, dissociation and shame

• Certificate Program in Traumatic Stress Studies — Trauma Research Foundation, led by Bessel van der Kolk
• Janina Fisher — working with shame (PESI)
• Dolores Mosquera — a series of trainings on dissociation and complex trauma (70 hours), including work with dissociated parts, the progressive approach, personality disorders, complex trauma and survivors of domestic violence
• Dr Anabel González — group therapy for patients with complex trauma (16 hours)
• certification programme in the assessment of trauma-related disorders (40 hours): TADS-I and the advanced workshop

Specialist applications of EMDR

• Dr Elisa Faretta — EMDR in psychosomatic disorders (16 hours)
• Dr Elisa Faretta — EMDR with obsessive-compulsive disorder (16 hours)
• Natalia Seijo — somatoform and psychosomatic disorders and autoimmune illness (16 hours)
• Dr Hélène Dellucci — transgenerational trauma, including where dissociation is present (32 hours)
• Dr Luca Ostacoli — neglect trauma underlying depression, parts I and II (30 hours)
• EMDR in the treatment of substance addiction (8 hours)

Crisis intervention

• ASSYST HEART — Humanitarian Emergency ASSYST Response Training, Dr Ignacio Jarero

Psychosis

• School of Psychotherapy for Psychosis — accredited training (90 hours)
• Voices: a therapist's guide (20 hours)
• Dr Amy Hardy — cognitive behavioural therapy for post-traumatic stress in psychosis (8 hours)

Checking my qualifications

I think you should be able to verify that what I write about myself is true. Below are the registers I appear in.

Register of Polish EMDR Therapy Association therapists European Certificate of Psychotherapy register

Professional memberships

• Polish EMDR Therapy Association
• Polish Psychological Association
• Polish Association of Psychotraumatologists
• American Psychological Association — International Affiliate Member

Book a consultation