Kate | Somatic Therapist

Introduction

Perhaps you're someone who keeps it together on the outside — managing the children, the work, the relationships — while quietly feeling lost on the inside.

Perhaps anxiety has become such a familiar companion you've almost stopped noticing it's there. Or you sense there are patterns in your life you can't quite shift, no matter how hard you try.

Perhaps you just have a feeling — not yet a clear thought — that there might be another way to live.

If any of that resonates, you might be in the right place.

What I offer isn't one more thing to do, or another strategy to manage yourself with. It's an invitation to come down out of the busy, overworked mind — and into the stillness of the body. To stop doing, even briefly, and simply be.

How I work

I work body-first. The emotions and experiences that were too hard to process in the past don't disappear — they live on in the body, in held breath, in a tension in the chest, in the way we carry ourselves through the world. We don't need to go back over the story of what happened. Instead, we learn to compassionately be with the felt experience — not to judge it, or will it away, but to gently integrate the lost parts of ourselves.

My approach is rooted in Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy — a deeply relational method that understands healing as something that happens not through force or analysis, but through safety, presence, and warmth. I also weave in yoga, Tai Chi, and breathwork alongside talk-based work where that feels useful.

Sessions are led by you. There are no assessments, and nothing is forced. We stay curious together about what wants to step forth. I ask new clients to commit to an initial four sessions — enough time to build trust, find our feet, and feel into what might be possible.

About me

I came to this work the long way round.

I know from my own experience what it is to live mostly in the head — driven, capable, and quietly disconnected from what was really going on inside. Yoga found me at 25 — my first real invitation to turn back towards my body. Meditation followed, and slowly began to change who I was. It has taken years of my own ongoing therapy, practice, and the humbling work of becoming a parent to three children to learn to inhabit myself in deeper, more honest ways.

I am a New Zealand trained secondary school teacher, a 500-hour certified yoga teacher, a meditator, and a Tai Chi practitioner, currently in my third and final year of Hakomi training. I'm not a finished product standing at a safe distance from this work — I'm in it, alongside you.

I know what it is to put yourself last. I know what burnout feels like from the inside. And I know from my own ongoing journey that things genuinely can change.

Who I work with

You don't need to be in crisis to come. You just need to be a little curious. I particularly enjoy working with people navigating anxiety, a sense of being stuck, people-pleasing patterns, life transitions, and the particular exhaustion of holding everything together while quietly neglecting themselves.

I offer sessions in person in Birkenhead on Wednesdays and Fridays, and online via Zoom throughout the week.

I'd love to hear from you — there's no obligation, just a conversation.  Please when you send your contact details do include your phone number as emails tend to get lost.