Trauma Support Providers

Professional Biography

Hello reader of my bio.

My professional background appears here https://www.parksclinic.com/who/dr-henry-g-luiker/

I describe the treatment modality I offer, Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy, here https://www.parksclinic.com/what/counselling-psychotherapy/

Can I describe here in about 500 words the process through which I help survivors of severe abuse at the hands of previously trusted individuals (that is, people to whom we are emotionally attached in some way)? I will give it a go.

The first step is: we identify together, what are your current problems? What symptoms, problems, anxieties, relationship difficulties, work or study difficulties, limits on fulfilling your potential, do you want to solve?

The second step is: your learning how you connect with yourself bodily and viscerally as we have this discussion. For example: am I feeling tense or anxious? How do I experience this anxiety? Do I feel overwhelmed and want to rush out of the room ? Does my head go fuzzy? Do I start to become distrustful and fearful of the therapist? Am I nauseous? Do I start to confuse in my mind the therapist with the abuser? Do I go numb? Do I detach and mentally leave the room? When we experience severe abuse of our bodies and emotions, we can be left with a ""distorted"" and problematic connection with our own bodies and emotions.

By the time we get through these two steps, we will have clear ideas of what you want to achieve in our work, and have established your role as the ""compass"" for our work - you will monitor your anxiety so that we are in a productive place, neither insufficiently challenged nor too uncomfortable. We want to find your productive ""middle"" and try to stay there. If anxiety is too high all the time, I will help you learn to manage your anxiety before we proceed on your climb up your personal Mount Everest.

By this time you will (hopefully!) have a sense of whether you think I am competent and likely to be able to help you. If you don't, we will discuss finding a therapist, perhaps with a different approach, that might be more helpful to you.

Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy is a powerful and effective treatment, with very strong scientific evidence (for further reading see Prof Allan Abbass's webpage http://reachingthroughresistance.com/intensive-short-term-dynamic-psychotherapy/).

But its not for everyone. And it is part of the ISTDP method that we will together establish that in the first few sessions, so that you don't waste your precious time and your precious opportunity to get help, engaged in a therapy that is not helping you.

Client Types

• Child
• Adolescent
• Adult
• Couple
• Family
• Groups
• LGBTIQ