Our Philosophy

At Gentle Journeys we recognise how daunting, exciting, overwhelming, demanding, rewarding and exhausting parenting can be. We appreciate it is often not a straight forward journey and that confidence can ebb and flow, with so many pressures and expectations placed upon us.

We support parents with a broad range of difficulties. Themes include, but are not limited to, managing toddler tantrums and big emotions, sleeping or eating issues, how to play or feel more connected with your child through play, managing adult feelings of anxiety or low mood, parent identity changes, couple relationship difficulties and parent-child attachment. We also organise all the relevant research for parents around these topics. Our knowledge as psychologists is rooted in attachment research and neuroscience, as well as respectful and compassionate parenting practises. 

We also work with parents who might have had a difficult pregnancy, birth or start to parenting, and have not had the opportunity to share this, or process the feelings associated with this. We are also aware that becoming a parent for the first time can often trigger difficult memories or feelings from one’s own childhood; particularly in relation to their own parents. Therefore, in our one to one therapy we help parents make sense of these complex relationships and the impact that they can have on their parenting journey.

In our work we believe in supporting parents to understand the reasons behind their toddler’s behaviours. We look beyond the behaviour and reframe the idea of attention seeking to connection seeking; that is, toddlers use their behaviours as a way of communicating their needs that they can’t yet explain. Helping parents in this way leads to more successful parenting strategies and long-lasting changes in managing children’s behavioural challenges. 

We pride ourselves on our ability to make parents feel at ease, not judged, cared for and held in mind. At Gentle Journeys our philosophy is about helping parents to be good enough, connected enough and supported enough on their parenting journey.