MELISSA DUNLOP, PHD., UKCP Reg.d 

I have been developing my understanding of how human beings flourish and grow throughout my career, trying different ways of seeing and sense-making in a world that doesn’t always make sense. Supporting and enabling the healthy development of individuals who are moved to find personal growth through a psychotherapeutic relationship  feels like especially meaningful work as our societies move through challenging times, with major ecological and digital transitions and a good deal of precarity, uncertainty and social division, wherever we live in the world. I feel a personal investment in my clients' journeys, recognising that no matter how isolated they feel in their experience, we are all in this together.

While psychotherapy can benefit anyone at any time, most people decide to seek out therapeutic support due to stressful events, periods of crisis or change, unmanageable feelings of anxiety or depression, or a sense that things cannot carry on as they are.

I offer clients a restorative relationship through which they can grieve what is too much, or not enough, identify and work with the cyclic reappearance of old traumas in a safe, non-judgemental space and eventually, experience a growing sense of being the capable artists of their own lives.

I aim to find what feels fitting from different perspectives and work with each client according to their needs and priorities. I consider psychotherapy to be an artful process; arts theories and practices underpin my understanding of how change is generated through the creative-relational engagement of client and practitioner. 

I offer an atmosphere of warmth, humour, playful imagination and non-judgmental open-mindedness, allowing you space to set the agenda and use the therapeutic relationship to reflect upon and learn about your own life experiences and psychological processes in ways that are meaningful to you. 

I support my work as a psychotherapist, where my focus is very much on individual circumstances, with my research activity which  examines the shared picture and explores how creative, relational theories, processes and practices may bring fitting approaches to support adaptation in our contemporary age. For more information see The Interpersonal. 

My research inevitably influences my relationships with clients, alongside more established knowledge bases that I have learned from previously, including (most relevant to how I work in practice) developmental psychology, psychoanalysis, humanistic and integrative psychotherapeutic approaches, and theories deriving from the embodied and creative arts. 

I am a Psychotherapy Research Tutor at Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling. Previously, I have been Course Tutor at (Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling), a Teaching Fellow at University of Edinburgh and practiced as a trainee psychotherapist within the Community Mental Health Services team at Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust 

ONLINE PRACTICE

Online psychotherapy has become commonplace since the pandemic, allowing rapid development and understanding around the practical and theoretical adjustments that are needed to make it work well. Working online allows you to have relational continuity if you travel frequently, have mobility challenges, time limitations, or are physically located where there isn't an experienced therapist nearby.

I try to ensure that my clients' experiences are optimised by creating a safe and personable online atmosphere, where we can achieve a good enough sense of human presence and connection to allow therapeutic work to take place in spite of our physical separation.