Welcome

Therapist in the City – About Me

My name is Claire van den Bosch. I practice as a UKCP-accredited therapist in the City of London, and online from home supporting clients around the world. Additionally, I work one day a week in the outpatient clinic of a private treatment facility. I am also qualified in EMDR and Attachment-Informed EMDR and to Level 2 in Internal Family Systems. I have experience treating PTSD, complex (attachment) trauma, addiction, codependence, dissociative disorders, anger issues, phobias, and anxiety. I am recognised by EMDR Europe as an Accredited Practitioner, and I regularly deliver lectures and training for trainee therapists and EMDR therapists.

Are you in distress, consistently unhappy, or stuck in self-defeating patterns? Or alternatively are you ready to make the most of a new phase of your life? Are you looking for a therapist who will be committed to supporting you with warmth, and good humour? If you answered yes to any of these, please do get in touch for a chat or to book an initial no-fee appointment.

If you’re undecided, it might help to hear what others have said about me, or to read a little more about the many different aspects of life that therapy can help with.

Therapist in the City – My Background

My first degree was in Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology from the University of Oxford. I began facilitating public health and mental health workshops in 1992 and went on to spend many years working in both the public and corporate sectors as a trainer and facilitator. I completed my first training as a counsellor in 2002 with the amazing charity Sane, and in 2004 started working in the field of addiction recovery. I studied at the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education (CCPE) between January 2009 and November 2014, qualifying with a postgraduate diploma in integrative psychotherapy and staying on as a co-facilitator on the Gestalt module of the Diploma course and now also lecturing on the Addictions and Transactional Analysis modules of the second year of the programme. The Diploma is accredited by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, with whom I’m registered as a Full Member. In 2019 I qualified as an EMDR therapist with the EMDR Academy before going on to complete an Attachment Informed EMDR training in 2020. I did my Attachment Informed EMDR training with EMDR Focus, with whom I am now an Associate Training Facilitator. I gained my EMDR Europe Practitioner Accreditation in 2020. In 2021 and 2022 I completed my Level 1 and Level 2 trainings in Internal Family Systems and am now working towards full accreditation with the Internal Family Systems Institute. I am particularly passionate about the compassionate perspective IFS brings to my understanding of addiction and addictive processes.

Therapist in the City – How I Work

My training has equipped me to work within humanistic, Gestalt, psychodynamic, and transpersonal frameworks, and to combine traditional talking therapy with IFS, EMDR and body, breath and movement work. In recent years I have integrated Internal Family Systems, Polyvagal theory, intergenerational work, and a deeper understanding of the human brain into my work. I love to work in practical, educational and skills-based ways, yet also creatively with the body, the imagination and symbolism. It is my ongoing experience that combining verbal and non-verbal ways of working leads to much greater transformation than the use of words alone.

“The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self.” From “Love after Love” by Derek Walcott