Trauma-informed psychotherapy & counselling
A compassionate online therapy that combines Internal Family Systems & EMDR - an embodied trauma-focused approach
Psychological trauma: impact & adaptations
Hi I offer trauma-focused psychotherapies and counselling for most psychological and emotional issues.
Have you ever found yourself knowing exactly what to do, but somehow struggling to do it? Setting a boundary, organising a project...
But the rumination & procrastination prevents you.
You then spend years developing increasingly sophisticated explanations for the way you are stuck.
Even therapy can reinforce this pattern if every session becomes another exercise in analysing the problem.
To interrupt this endless torment ... we can use trauma-focused therapies.
Using Internal Family Systems therapy & Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Two trauma-informed therapies & they work well together.
The effects of trauma are stored in the body. Until they are addressed there, words alone are not enough.
Two trauma-focused therapies
I've integrated two trauma-informed therapies to help you on your healing journey
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
We can approach your problems using Internal Family Systems. IFS helps us understand the different parts of ourselves, including those that protect us from difficult feelings and those that carry vulnerability i.e. shame.
IFS helps us get to know how your nervous system adapted to cope with perhaps 'the weather' in your family and childhood.
You may feel wrong, lonely, unlovable, worthless, defeated... IFS can help you heal these parts. Maybe you were isolated, excluded, scapegoated.
Rather than fighting or 'removing' these 'symptomatic' parts, we develop a compassionate relationship. We can move from 'performance' to becoming your 'authentic self.
Instead of judging your parts or trying to push them away, we can befriend them. Often this means unburdening them of fear and trauma. Some of these burdens may be ancestral legacies.
We can use EMDR
EMDR is a trauma therapy traditionally used to help with PTSD and shell-shock but has been adopted to help treat many mental health issues. Nowadays many psychological and emotional problems can be seen through a trauma lens.
People like Gabor Mate and Bessel Van Der Kolk are popular therapists who advocate for trauma-informed approaches to healing.
EMDR can help with most trauma presentations, not only single-issue trauma like an accident or an episode of abuse. But many anxiety problems, fears, phobias, flashbacks, avoidance, soothing behaviours and addictions.
Conditions around chronic low-confidence, people-pleasing, self-abandonment, codependency, perfectionism, procrastination. And even complex cases of dissociation, loss of self, DID, and obsessive and compulsive traits.
It is a unique, powerful therapy that helps people recover from problems triggered by traumatic events in their lives. Often the treatment can involve revisiting these memories and resolving the 'repeating patterns' in the nervous system.
EMDR can involve getting to reparent your inner child, re-doing or repairing things you suffered in childhood like neglect, abuse, abandonment.
I used many different methods and often begin by resourcing and stabilising your nervous system, to help you feel safe and secure in your body.
So Internal Family Systems involves getting to know 'parts' of your nervous system that adapted to help you survive but may overdo this. And EMDR helps us process traumatic memories - often there is a crossover and integration of these two effective techniques.
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
From performance to authenticity
So we're not looking for 'symptoms' to remove
Instead we can get curious about 'protective parts'
Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.
About Johnnie
I'm Johnnie Taylor, a trauma-informed psychotherapist with extensive clinical experience in the NHS and privately.
I have an MSc from Kings College London and the University of Kent. I also have a Postgraduate Diploma from Goldsmiths College, University of London. I originally trained as a journalist at CIty University London.
For many years i was a candidate with IGAP - a London-based training in Jungian Analysis. I was a clinical nurse specialist and crisis team manager in the NHS.
I'm also a judge on for the Orwell Society's Dystopian Fiction Prize.
Registered & accredited with
What people say
“Doing therapy with Johnnie has been very helpful. He is empathetic, skilled, and can switch between different modalities. Working with Johnnie helped me to regulate my nervous system better, as well as to address some of the deep-seated issues that needed working through. I would highly recommend his therapy services, especially if you’re looking for a mix of body-based approaches, such as EMDR and IFS.”
“Johnnie, I am writing to you because I did not say thank you for your help. You have a calm voice and a relaxed and friendly manner, which made you an easy person to talk to, working through problems. I hope you help many people in the future.”
“Dear Johnnie, Thank you for understanding, acceptance, kindness and help. This has meant I have been able to explore my life honestly with you. Thank you for everything — I will miss you and wish you every happiness and contentment in your life.”
Get in touch
If you’re considering trauma-informed therapy, please send a confidential email.
You can also send a WhatsApp message in confidence to +44 7525 456544.
Registered & accredited with
In Canterbury, UK, working online
Heaton Road, Canterbury, Kent, CT1 3PY
- Trauma and PTSD
- Complex trauma (C-PTSD)
- Childhood trauma and adverse experiences
- Abuse, neglect, erasure, abandonment
- Anxiety, hypervigilance, flashbacks
- Depression and low mood
- Anger, resentment and feeling hostile
- Loneliness and feeling unlovable
- Chronic stress and burnout
- Relationship incapacity
- Attachment and abandonment issues
- Family scapegoating and emotional abuse
- Low self-esteem, poor confidence
- People-pleasing, shrinking and codependency
- Dissociation, DID, loss of identity
- Grief and hopelessness
- Life transitions and work issues
- Difficulties arising from narcissistic or controlling relationships
- Chronic fatigue and the emotional impact of long-term health difficulties
- Somatic conditions related to emotional problems, including pain and eating problems, dependency