Welcome
It is hard enough reaching out to a friend, let alone someone you have not met before. All you have to go on are the words and images on these pages, and my professional credentials. So let me say at the outset – trust your instincts. You deserve to talk to someone you feel safe to open up to, someone who treats you like a real and unique human rather than a ‘client’ or a ‘case’, and someone who you don’t have to be on your best behaviour for. I hope I get to be someone like that for you.
I am a BACP registered counsellor trained in Psychosynthesis Counselling by the Psychosynthesis Trust in London. I offer online psychosynthesis counselling.
My aim as a counsellor is to create a space for you to step outside the overwhelm of life’s demands and pressures, and to support you to make meaning of your life – the day-to-day, the deep discoveries, and the downright difficult. Hopefully, you will know if we are on track if you start to harness the stories and forces at play in your life, and to reengage with life’s possibilities – more peaceful, more skilful and perhaps even more playful.
My background & approach
Most of my working life has been in small charities and projects – in communications, training and community development roles – supporting people to improve their local communities and environment. I have also been a university lecturer, looking at the broader patterns of society and environment that shape our lives. I am a trained mentor and facilitator who is still curious and excited about the dynamics and potentials of groups and communities. My path through these roles has brought me increasingly closer to the intimate and the relational – the immediate space in which personal and social transformation meet and unfold.
All these experiences and perspectives play a vital part in my approach to counselling, and my training in psychosynthesis helps me to weave them together.
Psychosynthesis is a transpersonal framework for counselling and self-development. It emerged in the mid 20th century as a holistic alternative to psychoanalysis and attempts to support people to widen and deepen their experience of themselves and of being alive. It embraces a broad range of techniques and perspectives – mirroring the richness of human experience – imaginative, rational, emotive, physical and spiritual. It deals with the past pains, present challenges and emerging potentials of each unique life; seeing all as an integrated whole – from ‘acorn to oak’. The aim is to support people to find purpose in the wider tapestry of life – from family relationships to planet; to make meaning, express their needs and take action.
I also work as a Study Tutor and Trainer for trainee counsellors at the Psychosynthesis Trust in London.
Ryan O’Kane (MBACP, PGDip, MPhil), Psychosynthesis Counsellor
