Kieran Nolan
Psychotherapist in Manchester

About Kieran
I have been working full-time as a psychotherapist since 2002 and have over 15,000 clinical hours of experience. Trained in a number of different types of therapy, I offer a huge depth of experience, formerly as a Senior Psychotherapist with a community mental health team (CMHT) within the NHS and now as a psychotherapist in private practice. Additionally, as I have an unusual dual training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Humanistic & Integrative Psychotherapy, I am uniquely placed to offer a flexible and powerful approach to psychotherapy. I now also incorporate EMDR, Transference Focused Psychotherapy (TFP) and Schema Therapy into my work.

I use an integrative approach to psychotherapy based on my training in a number of different models. This approach is underpinned by a psychoanalytic understanding of human development, motivation and behaviour. Although research has overwhelmingly proven that past attachments styles shape our identity, the type of therapy I offer concentrates on what is happening for the client now in their lives and/or how they react in the therapy itself, with a view to altering, mostly in small subtle ways, aspects of who they are. Some of the issues I currently work with include:

Background & Psychotherapy Qualifications

• Accreditation as a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist with United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP).
• PhD from the University of Manchester. My area of research was Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
• MSc in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy from Middlesex University/Metanoia Institute.
• Fully trained EMDR practitioner.
• Certified Transactional Analyst
• Trained in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy
. Trained in Brain Spotting Phases 1& 2

My Specialisms

EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an effective psychological treatment which is used to help clients overcome the impact of painful, distressing and traumatic experiences from the past that still interferes with their current functioning. Evidence is accumulating that EMDR can help people process traumas such as physical assault, sexual assault, accidents, childhood trauma, natural disasters, war related experiences, surgical trauma and other traumatic experiences.

I am increasingly using EMDR either as a standalone therapy or as an adjunct to my longer term work with clients. However, traumatic events are not always of the dramatic nature described above and can often involve repeated patterns of inter-personal relating which leaves an individual with low self esteem and feelings of worthlessness. EMDR can also help with these types of problems. The unique benefit of the of application EMDR is that it can often people process traumas which they have been unable to in previous therapies due to feeling stuck or blocked, even if those treatments have greatly helped in other areas of their life.

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Although I use an integrative pluralistic approach to providing therapy based on my training in a number of models, this integrative approach is influenced by a psychoanalytic understanding of human development, motivation and behaviour. Although research has overwhelmingly proven that past attachments styles shape our identity, the type of therapy I offer concentrates on what is happening for the client now in their lives and/or how they interact towards me in the therapy itself.

Most of us, it seems to me, are usually running away from some aspect of our internal mind/body experience that we are too afraid to face. We often come into therapy when we can no longer run and the consequences of all those years of running have left us with broken bodies, a sense of emptiness and a lack of meaning in life. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy is a therapy geared to specifically help an individual face the things they are afraid of. This is initially explored though free association and often involves the emotional reaction a client experiences towards the therapist, with a view to altering, mostly in small subtle ways, aspects of who they are.

Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy
This is a term used to describe a number of different models of therapy such as Transactional Analysis, Gestalt, Person Centred, Body Psychotherapy, Psychosynthesis, Psychodrama and many more. At its core is the understanding that the struggles and suffering we experience in life are universal and part of our shared humanity. In this way the therapist and client work collaboratively in a relational way to help the client understand and face the existential challenges that life continually presents us with. However, it is emphasised that it is the client who has agency and choice over their life. Personal responsibility and the ability to change are the key philosophical elements in humanistic psychotherapy, even if the wider external factors are taken into account.

An explicit idea involved in integrative psychotherapy is that it is pluralistic and curious by nature. The therapist may be trained in a certain model but that model itself would have been integrative and would have involved learning about other models of therapy. This is a pragmatic type of therapy and an integrative psychotherapist endeavours to continually broaden his/her knowledge base about other models of therapy and other fields such as the arts, literature, philosophy and other related areas. Integrative therapists then use this continuous quest for knowledge and self-development to assist in their work with clients.

Transactional Analysis
Transactional Analysis is a model of therapy which is widely used in the private sector. This was the model that I first trained in and it still influences my work. This therapy is based on the idea that we do not just have one fixed identity or ego state. Our minds in fact, are in a continuous and fluid oscillation between different ego states within our overall personality, dependent to some degree on the external circumstances in our life.

At a simple level this is best understood if we notice the subtle or not so subtle differences in how behave in different situations. For instance if you think about how you behave towards your boss, wife/husband, friends, colleagues etc, you will probably understand that different situations trigger different emotional states in you. It is usually the case that for all of us at different times, these ways of relating often seem to be beyond our control or are out of our awareness and cause us some discomfort. Transactional Analysis helps us to understand the multifaceted complex nature of what it means to be a human being, it allows us have more choice about how we want to be in any given situation and to take responsibility for how we behave.

Transference-Focussed Psychotherapy
Transference-Focussed Psychotherapy is based on the idea that real relationships we had in our childhood become internalised. These are called dyads. For example, if you had a parent who shouted at you a lot as a child, for a TFP perspective you would internalise both sides of this relationship i.e. both the frightened scared child and the frightening scary parent.

Now in adult life, certain triggers would cause this dyad to be activated and an individual would switch between the different sides of this dyad. TFP believes that these switches are often outside of our awareness, especially the aggressive side of the dyad and the therapy is based on bringing these dyads into awareness. Thus, TFP is fairly unique in the field of psychotherapy as it believes that real change can only occur when we come to recognize, accept and change the aggressive part of our nature.

Group Therapy
I am an experienced group therapist. For most people group therapy is more difficult than individual therapy. This is partly due to it being, on the whole, more challenging than individual therapy as the other group members will often be more challenging than what an individual therapist may be. That being said, people who have had group therapy often find it a very rewarding experience and often notice that they have achieved more change in their life than they achieved from previous individual treatments.

The group therapy I facilitate is process oriented and is aimed at what is happening in and between the group at any given moment. This is not to say that individuals cannot bring issues about their life outside of the group or from their past into the session, it just that the emphasis is always on what is happening on an emotional and psychological between the participants. The feedback I have received from participants over the years is that they notice they bring the more difficult, complex aspects of their personalities into the group, whilst at the same time they notice positive change in their lives outside of the group.

Schema Therapy
Schema therapy is an innovative, truly integrated therapeutic approach which draws from cognitive-behavioural therapy, psychodynamic concepts, attachment theory, emotion-focused therapies and relational psychotherapy. A schema can be defined as a set of specific biological, behavioural, emotional and cognitive responses to stimulus in the present which are related to a much earlier stimulus that elicited the same group of responses. These schemas are judged to be maladaptive when they occur now in your adult life.

There are considered to be 18 schemas in general and everyone of us will have a combination of different types of schemas. Some examples of schemas are Abandonment/Instability, Emotional Deprivation, Defectiveness/Shame. Schema therapy helps you to identify what your schemas are and to develop resources through many different techniques such as imagery re-scripting. The idea is to identify and reduce the amount of time you spend in an activated schema. This facilitates change in the amount of time you stay in a healthy adult mode of being.

Approach to Psychotherapy & How I Work

What is psychotherapy?
At its simplest level, psychotherapy is a conversation between two people. Clients explore any aspect of their emotional, cognitive and bodily experiences. This can often involve discussing painful experiences which disturb, frighten or overwhelm them and which they often cannot discuss with family or friends. The therapist in turn, based on his/her experience of being a therapist, the model of therapy they use, and their own deep and continuous commitment to their own personal development, may offer suggestions to the client to help them understand and reframe their experiences.

Which therapy should I chose?
The straightforward answer to this is to choose one that you are comfortable with and one which fits your style of thinking and worldview. The research on psychotherapy outcome studies has clearly established that no one model of psychotherapy is better than another and all have similar success rates. One of the conclusions drawn from this is that the therapeutic alliance or the therapist/client fit is one of the most important factors which results in change (see reference below). It is important to bear in mind, that when searching for a therapist, you find both a model/type or therapy and a therapist that you feel comfortable with.

What to expect
Throughout my career I have trained in many different models of psychological treatment. After many many years of stretching myself in this way, and of having personal therapy in nearly all of the models I am trained in, I have no ideological allegiance to any particular model of therapy. My aim is to use my integrative background to offer you a bespoke therapy suited to your personality and to what you want to change about your life.

It is my experience that symptoms, in general, cannot be worked with in isolation from the fullness and complexity of your personality. That being said, symptoms sometimes need to be managed to create the stability and space necessary to withstand opening up painful experiences. We will spend the first couple of sessions talking through exactly what it is you want to change and how we may achieve that in the work together.

Therapies & Rates

Please note the rates detailed below are there to give you an idea of the therapists standard rates, we strongly advise you contact the therapist for more detailed rates and any offers they may have.

Therapy	Appointment Type	Rate
Psychotherapy	In Person	£80 per 50 minutes
EMDR	In Person	£80 per 50 minutes

Additional Rate Information

I currently charge £80 per session. However, fees are discussed on first contact and may vary depending on your income, I have a few places for people on low income but these are often taken.