Miss Bronwyn Davies Glover

A conversation with Bronwyn Davies Glover

• What led you to choose psychotherapy or counselling as a profession?

  I arrived into the world of psychotherapy and counselling through a long history as an artist in social work, youth work, community engagement, violence prevention, harm reduction, trauma work and arts education.
  
  For over ten years I used the mediums of art, movement and drama to develop workshops, performances, trainings, counselling programs, festivals, and conferences innovating new approaches toward healing and growth. I worked with diverse communities, schools, community centres, theatres, families, youth, women, young men, lgbttiqq2s, refugees, artists, health practitioners and survivors. As this work became increasingly more meaningful, I desired to move beyond my capacities and delve into the psychobiology of body-mind healing, human development, attachment theory and the neurobiology of trauma through therapy work.
  
  I have since had the privilege of working with clients from all different walks of life and am deeply committed to the creation of safe, inclusive, compassionate therapy.

• Which philosophical approaches have influenced your professional development?

  I am influenced by the humanist and somatic philosophies. Humanism reflects deep valuing of human dignity, fulfilment, potential affirming that individuals have the ethical right and responsibility to find freedom and determine meaning in their lives. Somatic theories preference internal physical perception and experience through using the body as the emergent tool. This approach uses a bottom-up philosophy of our physiology and body behaviour as shaping human experience.
  
  I am also influenced by existentialism and biopsychosocial approaches to human experience, suffering, healing, relationships, behaviour and meaning making. Biopsychosocial approaches acknowledge the intersections between the social, biological and psychological influences upon each individual. Every client exists as part of a wider system - their family, their relationships, their culture, their society, their environment, their genetic biology, their intergenerational family and global history.
  
  Using an integrative combination of these philosophies allows me to meet each client safely within their world, without judgement or critique. I move with curiosity and compassion to understand how each client has navigated their phenomenology and their intersecting experiences. I work both with the body and the mind, listening deeply to the messages from a client's physiology of health, pain, tension & energy and the messages from their mind that have created story essential to survival from the state of their body's life experiences.

• Which particular aspects of health or the human journey are you interested in?

  I am interested in all aspects of the human journey and health. Physical, spiritual, emotional, behavioural, psychological, interpersonal, intrapersonal. I am passionate about working with impacts of our biospychosocial influences and investigating the pathways to more freedom, agency, empowerment and individually identified healing with each client. It is both a privilege and honour to be invited into the unique worldview of each client and understand how best to support developing trust in the self and safety in the body.

• When do you think the client will start to feel that progress is being made?

  I believe the client will start to feel that progress is being made during the first session as we lay the groundwork and prepare for the journey together through a collaborative joining. In order to feel progress, I believe we need to feel hear, experience being seen and joined by another in our process. This is what I aim for during the first session with my clients. I work to attune to what is being communicated through verbal and non-verbal communication, listen deeply and get a 'felt sense' for the client's world.
  
  Progress is different for everyone therefore I use transparency and openness between myself and the client to check in, reflect back and communicate on what is happening as it is happening to invite a deeper level of trust and agency into the therapeutic relationship.
  
  We outline goals, hopes for therapy, frameworks for safety and a process for our work together.

• How has therapy made a difference in your life?

  Therapy has offered me the opportunity to learn about humanity, compassion, strength, survival and hope. Each client teaches me through their stories of survival and vulnerability and I learn how to listen with the whole body self, receiving communication from my clients' nervous systems, tone of voice, physiology, emotional states, faces.

• What do you like most about being a therapist?

  I love having the opportunity to truly 'meet' another. In each client-therapist relationship I have, I listen without judgement and join through offering a safe, real relationship centred on trust, compassion, healing and non reductionist support.