Sophie Elworthy

Navigating life’s challenges can become overwhelming and feel unmanageable at times. My intention is to provide support through creating a warm, non-judgemental space to reflect on your experience to make sense of what you are struggling with, whether a specific issue, or a general sense of dissatisfaction or unease.

Together we can explore how experiences from both your past and present may be impacting your ability to feel fulfilled. By mindfully exploring your relationship with yourself and others in your life, together we can identify skills and strategies which foster your sense of authenticity. With the goal of growing your capacity to tolerate and navigate challenges, I aim to help you to create and maintain equilibrium, emotional regulation and stability through somatic awareness and self-compassion.

I work with adults 18years plus, my areas or interest are:

• Anxiety/Depression
• Grief and loss
• Trauma
• Loneliness and isolation
• Addiction
• Low self esteem/self worth
• Emotional regulation
• Cross cultural issues
• Workplace issues
• Climate anxiety
• Childhood/family experiences
• Parenting
• Self harming
• LGBTQIA+
• Menopause

Approach
As a relational, psychodynamic psychotherapist/counsellor, I offer long or short-term therapy in which I aim to help you make sense of feelings, thoughts, reactions and physical sensations that you find confusing or are struggling with. Along with a focus on development, attachment, relationship and trauma informed theories, I have a particular interest in utilising mindfulness and self-compassion based techniques which are grounded in neurobiological scientific research.

Learning to bring what is unconscious to the surface of our understanding, both through telling our stories and paying attention to our physical responses, can help foster self-awareness, creating more compassion for ourselves and others in our day to day lives. I hope to assist you to find effective ways to communicate your needs and  create healthy boundaries, enhancing how you relate to yourself and the people in your life.

What you can expect from me
I work with honesty, compassion, collaboration and open-mindedness to creatively support your journey to gain insight, understanding, self-acceptance and self-compassion. Through the relationship we develop together, I will walk beside you to help bring clarity to patterns of behaviour and thinking that may no longer serve you. I support you to find a deeper sense of purpose, enjoyment and resilience in your life.

I work holistically and respectfully in exploring the aspects of your identity which mean something to you, both as an individual and in the context of your family, whānau, hapu, iwi, community, culture and society as a whole. My identity as a partner in Te Tiriti o Waitangi is important to my practice in Aotearoa as a multi-cultural country under a bi-cultural platform.

Background and experience
Born in Aotearoa New Zealand I identify as she/her and have English, Irish, Scottish, Spanish and Scandinavian heritage. I am also a mother. I have spent time living in Australia and the US. After many years working in film and the arts I saw the need for more mental health practitioners and this, along with my desire for more meaning in my life, influenced my decision to train as a psychotherapist.

Previous to working in private practice I worked at the AUT Integrated Health Clinic as a trainee practicing individual psychotherapy with a diverse range of clients. In 2022, I worked at Higher Ground, a residential therapeutic community for addiction rehabilitation and in 2021 at Te Whare Hinātore, a residential therapeutic community for homeless Wāhine. In both of these organisations I did a combination of individual therapy and group work.