What happens in a session?

When we first meet, I will ask you to tell me what issue makes you look for therapy.  We may explore this through talking, or you might like to would like to work through creative media  - the tools of Dramatherapy - stories, movement, working through metaphors and imagination. How we work will be your choice. I will ask you to tell me about your life so we can explore your story and what you are working towards.  In soul work, however, the old story is important, but the not yet recognised story is what we are waiting for.   This deeper meaning becomes hidden or lost through life experiences that have made us less than who we really are.  If we decide to work together, we will set a contract which is an understanding between us around confidentiality, the session time, the session fee and other logistics.  Sessions are 50 minutes long and are offered at the same time on a weekly basis.   

I am not a therapist who keeps silent or takes on a distant role.   I will enter into the material you bring by listening, supporting and challenging you to listen to yourself and take what you hear seriously. The work is about us as a team listening to what is lost or hurt, frustrated or disempowered in your story and looking for the "soul-ution". Your Soul is the expert. My skills are about enabling you to trust yourself.

I am registered with HCPC (Health and Care Professions Council) and UKCP (United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy), and as such, I abide by their ethical frameworks. I will maintain confidentiality around any material a client brings unless there is a risk of harm to self or others.  I am a member of the Confederation of Analytical Psychologists, The British Association for Dramatherapy, The Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology and EMDRia.  

What informs the therapy

"We do know that in a usual person who comes to therapy, there is a torment of some kind, pathology of some kind.

And the first move is to affirm it – not fight it or even analyze it. Give the pathology shelter. Let it sit down in the chair".

James Hillman Inter Views page 24

I am trained and registered both in Psychotherapy (talk therapy) and as a Creative Arts Therapist (Sesame Dramatherapy).  This means I can offer the option to talk or to use a more imaginative, symbolic approach which some people prefer. The work can be focused and short-term, or a longer ongoing timescale may be needed.  

I  draw heavily on the Inter Family Systems approach. IFS is an innovative approach that enables the client to learn how to listen to and befriend differing inner parts and attitudes as if they are characters, each with a valid perspective.   People come to understand their inner critic, the shamed or frightened child, the addict, the procrastinator, the melancholic, and the ambitious in a new way.  When these are understood in their own right, they can be viewed with compassion and curiosity and integrated so that there is unity inside and less of the pulling in different ways that all humans experience.  All parts are welcome in this way of working.

I am a qualified  Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapist  - an approach that uses bi-lateral stimulation to coordinate the implicit (right brain) and explicit (left brain)  hemispheres of the brain together. It is highly effective with people who have been through traumatic events.  

I have a Diploma in the practice of Energy Psychotherapy a gentle transpersonal approach which works with the body, mind and soul through clearing energy through work with accupoints and energy centres (chakras).  Blue Diamond Healing (Phil Mollon) is part of this work.

As I am an Assertion Trainer, we can work more directly to build up your self-esteem and confidence, giving you everyday skills to cope with relationships, work and life in general.    We work with:

• What assertive behaviour is
• The Low Self Esteem/ High Self Esteem cycle and how it shows in the body
• Self Esteem Rights
• Where the Inner Critic comes from, and how to ask it to take a rest
• What's my life like, and what roles I play?
• How to use anger
• Saying No
• Preparing for change and the self-nurturing kit
• Making conversation

My practice works with what I call “The Deathlands” This means I am prepared to accompany people through the physical and spiritual issues involved when meeting a medical diagnosis, in bereavement, going through the dying process, considering the notion of the Afterlife – what does or does not happen when our life in a body comes to an end. 

Location

Mostly I work on the ZOOM platform or offer garden sessions in the summer.  Some people prefer to meet face to face, which is possible on conditions around taking responsibility not to attend with colds, coughs and sneezes, which we can discuss!    Face-to-face work takes place in an upstairs room in a house in SW2.  There is no lift, but there is a handrail on the 15-step stairway.  There is parking around the house except from 10.00 am to 12.30 pm.  The nearest tube is Brixton on the Victoria Line and then a five-stop bus ride or 20-minute walk.  

 Fees 

The fee for a session is £70.00, which I ask people to pay just before or immediately after the session by electronic banking.  I offer a small number of reduced-rate fees for people who are on benefits or in exceptional circumstances. This can be discussed at the first meeting.

 Clients Write:

  I didn't think that sessions on Zoom would work but they did and I was greatly supported by having a regular place each week of the lockdown.  I was very exhausted as a front line NHS worker and having a space that I could reach without more travelling was a bonus.  I felt met and supported by the work with Mary Smail and valued both the talking and some of the other creative exercises we used when we got stuck.   I liked Mary's lightness of touch about serious things.  

Rico 

 I started working with Mary because I felt anxious, and she helped me to take a different approach to that anxiety. Rather than fearing it, I was able to look at it and hold it gently - to understand that it was a part of me that was working very hard to try to protect me. I was then able to try to look for that part of me that could "speak" to the anxious part, and tell it that it didn't need to work so hard. This was the part that I needed to access, and with Mary's help feel much more in touch with. In our work together I've been calling it my hearth. Where the other parts of me can gain strength and nourishment.   Working with Mary has helped me feel more fully connected with myself, more integrated as a whole person and more able to gently assert my space and my truth in the world. I work in frontline services with refugees and have found Mary's soul work approach very pertinent to a job in which I sit with people's pain and bear witness to their suffering as whole people, rather than as cases. I feel that the work we've done together has helped me make my career in this field more sustainable and helped me approach my work and relationships with a new feeling of purpose and spaciousness to reflect - to be able to look at the troubled world as it is and work with strength, supported by self-care, towards the world as it should be... I'm not quite there yet, but this is what Mary's warmth, acceptance and ability to be caring while empowering rather than coddling, has helped me to start working towards.  Thank you Mary.   

Alice     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Mary Smail is an entirely unique woman. Being in her presence is to dwell with a being that is enlightened. In other words, she is wise, she understands, she knows. You will feel held, attended to, and cared for if you are lucky enough to work with Mary. If you let her, she will help you discover your path to your own intuition. She is gentle and courageous. She is enchanting, but don't take my word for it, experience for yourself.  

 Mary Franklin-Smith, Dramatherapist  

 There is so much more than words between a client and therapist.  Your work, Mary, is more than an idea - it is a way of living - it is the way that you are.    

Lisa, Psychotherapist

  I spent a short time working with Mary.  I came because I was being bullied in my work as a fitness professional.   We worked through assertion training methods and I left feeling a bit more sure of myself. Recommended!  

Steve   

  Mary's well-balanced professionalism and personality provide a safe, comfortable environment in which to work. The lightness and colour of the therapy room provide peaceful, easy surroundings and the range of tools we used both through talking and by using imagination helped me a lot to see things I had not known about before in my life.  

Joy

  I found Mary Smail during the first Covid lockdown.  Her approach like her website is different from most -  she brings a quality that is conveyed, even through Skype and then Zoom.   As a front-line worker the weekly slots were absolutely essential for me getting through the exhaustion and overwhelm.  

Joe 

 Mary has an incredible way of making you feel at ease, helping you to talk freely and honestly about your emotions and guiding you every step of the way. I’ve grown in confidence, and I’ve really   enjoyed my Internal Family Systems journey. Conversation flowed naturally and  Mary challenges you in a kind and gentle manner to help you find that lost confidence and the real you.                             Thank you so much Mary for helping me see the bigger picture.”

Jo W    

Supervision at Choice for Change charity, London

Mary has worked since 2015 as a supervisor for staff and volunteer counsellors with Choice for Change, a prison counselling project of Choices, a Christian charity in London. She has brought her experience, training and passion to our work together and has skilfully supported us in working with the complex clients we work with at the prisons. Mary works in a highly professional and ethical way, whilst keeping her relationship with, and support for, her supervisees at the centre of the work. She brings creativity and soul into her supervision practice and has an ability to hold these elements in the session as we consider the needs of the supervisee and of the client.

Dee Thornton, Team Lead, Choice for Change for pregnancy and child loss support, HMP Downview and HMP Bronzefield