Samantha Goldrick

A conversation with Samantha Goldrick

• What led you to choose psychotherapy or counselling as a profession?

  I have constantly been interested in what makes people think and feel the way they do and why we do the things we do. The experiences that often plague people I was always seeking to understand and learn not only what the lived experience was like but how to help ease the pain.
  
  As I progressed through my social work degree, I came to have a stronger appreciation for how power structures and dynamics influence and affect our mental health and wellbeing, our relationships and how systems work with and sometimes work against people who are seeking stability, connection and support from their communities. Then as a new graduate, I found through learning more about developmental and complex trauma frameworks just how trauma stories often sit underneath the surface of many experiences my clients were presenting with. I have been walking and working with trauma stories for most of my career, exploring the ways it affects a human’s sense of self, their capacity to feel connected and supported in their relationships and within a community and supporting clients towards coming to terms with their experiences, hopefully finding a form of healing that allows them to continue to thrive despite (or in spite) of these experiences.

• Which philosophical approaches have influenced your professional development?

  I draw upon humanist, person-centred, trauma-responsive approaches to my work. I also tell my clients that as woman and social worker I draw upon feminist and intersectionalist frameworks to my approach. I recall when first learning about complex trauma, how it shows up and its impacts and felt like there was a puzzle piece that changed the entire image. Since then I work to ensure my counselling sessions can feel safe and supportive enough for any disclosures to be made where needed. As a result, I do not believe that therapy is an apolitical experience and a person’s mental health and wellbeing needs to consider the context from which it was borne.
  
  Beyond this as I have progressed in my practice I have become more reflective of the role of existential questioning and mindful practices, seeking to incorporate them further into sessions as it suits my clients. This has been particularly helpful recently where clients recovering from burnout or at risk of burning out sit with questions about what they want this phase of their life to look like, what feels important to them and re-examining their relationship to work, money management and the impacts of making changes in these areas.

• Which particular aspects of health or the human journey are you interested in?

  So far, my professional experience had been focused on supporting people in recovering from relational trauma experienced various stages of their lives - childhood trauma, bullying, DFV, grief and loss, complex family dynamics, burnout and the weight of caring for others.
  
  Recently, and perhaps because setting up my own practice was inspired by my own experiences with compassion fatigue and burnout, I have been more interested and passionate about supporting people who are at risk of or are recovering from burnout themselves. So far I’ve gotten to work with many people who are in creative industries, healthcare professionals and workers in the services sector. The stressors currently being experienced are all universal and allow me to draw on my understandings of how consistent distress impacts our neurobiology and overall capacity for general functioning and the existential elements that face many adults when they begin to reassess and question their relationship to work.

• What methods do you use?

  Say what you want but I am an advocate of having an eclectic approach with the methods I used. This is because, being person-centred in my approach to me means being flexible and adaptable to what is showing up in the room and drawing on a range of methods to help a client meet their goals.
  
  Once a thorough psychosocial assessment has been completed and treatment goals are established, I will scaffold teaching clients various skills and techniques to meet their goals alongside offering plenty of time of engage in self-reflection and discussing stressors.
  
  As a result, I use a lot of mindfulness strategies in my approach including using breathwork and somatic awareness raising techinques, motivational interviewing ACT and DBT based approaches as needed and psychodynamic and existential counselling techniques.
  
  The focus is not to problem-solve or fix things for the client but to walk with them down the garden path and support them to find strategies that are going to work for them and that they are prepared to do consistently.

• When do you think the client will start to feel that progress is being made?

  I often say that while 10 sessions is a good start, my approach is suitable for clients who are mental prepared to engaged in a medium to long-term counselling relationship. 10 sessions on a fortnightly basis will only get you through one season of your life. Best case scenario, trauma work on average takes 12+ months in order for progress to be made. Burnout recovery, depending on the intensity of the experience that needs recovery can also take 6-18 months before change is felt in a client’s life. Not only that but at the centre of all of my work is a big theme on how to slow the f*ck down enough to notice the journey rather than getting frustrate about not being at the destination. So truthfully, I can’t guarantee when you may start to feel progress. It could be a shift after the first session and then another one 2-3 months later. They may be imperceptible and accumulated wins over time. The only this I can assure you is that it will happen and you will be supported.

• How has therapy made a difference in your life?

  Therapy has been helpful as a place to gain clarity, self-reflect, explore the level of meaning being attached to certain experiences, thoughts and beliefs and develop clarity and confidence in my ability to change directions as needed.

• What do you like most about being a therapist?

  I love being able to sit with my clients and help hold their fears, thoughts and feelings as they dip into vulnerable spaces and memories. I love to say that I’m not doing for but I am walking with my clients on their journeys of self-exploration and discovery and am privileged to be able to share space with them throughout the process.

• Do you ever have 'bad hair' days?

  I have wild hair days but I’m not going to be so harsh as to call them bad :P

• What do you think is the most significant problem we face, in the world today?

  The most significant problem? I think it is hard to pick just one but I believe we are starting to see a radical re-examination of our relationship to work, technology and productivity and the privileging of productivity, what it means to be wealthy and attainable wealth. These are some of the larger issues that are driving many of the conversations currently being had with burnt out clients.
  
  It can be seen in the cost of living crisis is demonstrating this, increased risks of burnout, compassion fatigue and general exhaustion, the impacts of mass redundancies in various sectors to incorporate AI and further disconnect humans from each other in order to engage in daily life. We see it in the increasing development of people preferring or fantasising about an ‘old school’/analogue lifestyle where mobile phones weren’t the centre of everything, where people connected in person more often and communities felt connected. This is not an unattainable dream but it does require assessing how much the resources we we’re using are serving us as much as we work to serve them.

• Can you share the name of a book, film, song, event or work of art that inspires you?

  That is so hard!! I can never really name my favourite films or things that inspire me.
  
  Most recently I’ll say Hamnet because after watching it I felt irrecoverably changed. I described it to others as real ‘soul work’ that happened throughout the process of that film and I love how trauma-informed the production approach had been when dealing with content such as grief, loss and spirit.