Rate Tracey Lynne Desjardins

Hello, I’m Tracey, an Emotional Therapeutic Counsellor. My formative years were spent in Canada, however since re-locating to England in 1998, I have been fortunate to live and travel across the globe, allowing me to gain a unique perspective and outlook on life, which is embedded in my counselling practice. Prior to re-training as a Therapeutic Counsellor in 2021, I worked as a Practitioner in a variety of roles within the Criminal Justice System and had specialisms in relationship difficulties, addiction, sexualised behaviours and anger management.

By incorporating my understanding and knowledge of human behaviour and the powerful work of the Inner Child model, allows me to provide therapy and counselling to individuals, helping them acknowledge and manage the emotional blocks that might be preventing them from achieving their goals and happiness.

Special areas of Interest

I am also a volunteer for Cruse Bereavement Services and thus, have a solid understanding of grief and bereavement counselling. I have worked with clients presenting with a range of varying issues and disorders since 2002. I have a particular interest in working with trauma, victims of domestic abuse, anxiety and depression, issues with self-esteem, trauma and highly sensitive personality trait (HSP) / Empaths, which I have published an article on.

I am a NCPS accredited and fully insured Emotional Therapeutic Counsellor working in private practice. I work with a wide variety of people offering a holistic approach, using Emotional Therapeutic Counselling and other techniques to gently understand the causes of client’s emotional turmoil, work through issues, and release negative feelings and blocks often developed in early childhood. I’ve helped people recognise and release emotions ranging from stress, anxiety, grief, shame, anger, family conflict, infidelity, sexual, physical and emotional abuse. I work with people in my practice room, online using MS Teams or via telephone.

What is Emotional Therapeutic Counselling and how does it differ from other forms of counselling?

ETC is a person-centred talking and creative therapy that helps clients who are experiencing distress in their lives. The distresses (or emotional blocks) can take the form of many emotions, including anger, shame and guilt.

ETC uses various tools to help a person recognise, acknowledge, and manage repressed or suppressed emotional blocks. This therapeutic approach can also help you understand and connect with your Inner Child.

What is the Inner Child?

The Inner Child is a powerful presence within our psyche, which often, and usually unconsciously, takes the centre stage in our ‘emotional world.’ A better way of understanding is to consider this as the ‘wounded child’ – the child who experienced disruption or a negative childhood environment in their earlier years.

The ‘wounded child’ can hold us hostage to our past. Our child within, holds all the positive and negative emotions we felt when we were young. The negative feelings would have been locked away. Suppressing our feelings and emotions when we were young would have provided us with a protective barrier. We can often feel intense pain when we experience specific types of emotions as adults; these feelings are often linked and associated to episodes and behaviours from our childhood, and can include:

Rejection, Lack of Confidence & Self-esteem, Guilt, Abandonment and Sadness

Experiences within our childhood have taught us how to feel and behave in certain situations. For example, we may have become use to accepting disappointment and rejection, always believing we are not good enough and accepting unreasonable behaviour from others (lack of boundaries).

We may have also become use to disappointment as we may have learnt that things never work out for us. When we shut down our emotions, we become frozen as we try to protect ourselves. We become numb and we lose the ability to connect emotionally with others.

Healing your inner child involves you directing your conscious mind towards the feelings you have within you. Enabling yourself to bring them out from within and understand the challenges they have created for you in adulthood. Setting healthy personal boundaries; knowing what, where and who triggers your inner child, whilst bearing in mind, how past trauma informs present emotions.

Letting go of past hurt and pain is a crucial step in recovery. Releasing anger from the child state can free individuals from a multitude of presenting issues, including depression, anxiety, lack of self-worth, shame, poor temper, and self-sabotage (imposter syndrome).

By reflecting on childhood and examining how we received love, positive attention, affection, and punishment, or perhaps you didn’t receive these things? How do you engage in relationships today? What do you long for or fear? Were you allowed to show emotions and move through them? It may be time we explored your Inner Child.