Kelly Waters-Radcliffe
Registered Psychologist
The word ‘therapy’ has two roots: 1) to medically treat a disease or injury and 2) to be in service. The first starts with the belief that something is broken and must be fixed. The second starts with the idea that healing begins with being heard and understood. Experience has taught me to walk the second path whenever possible.
Therapy is more about getting to what’s meaningful than it is about fixing what’s broken, though ‘broken’ is often how we feel! One reason for this is the confusion, guilt, shame and/or helplessness that come from being stuck! This tends to trap us in one narrow band of painful, repeating experience, usually ‘fighting’, ‘freezing’, or ‘fleeing’. We don't know how we got there or where to go next. However, when we recognize the patterns that trap us and begin to reconnect with those parts of ourselves that have gone missing, a path begins to emerge.
What I believe can be summarized in one corny saying: Life is like a garden. Life is like a garden in the sense that we tend to grow that which we pay most attention to. The more we focus on weeds, the more weeds we notice. And the more we pull at those weeds, the more we spread their seeds. The painful irony here is that even the most attentive and successful weeding results at best in an empty plot of land. Simply put, it’s better to give water, food and light to those things we wish to grow rather than those we don't. When our needs are met, when we take firm root in that which we care about, and when we bring our strengths to bear, the garden begins to thrive.”
Over the course of the last 18 years, Kelly has worked as a therapist, clinical supervisor, and programme developer rendering thought and service to issues ranging from depression and anxiety to addiction, disordered eating and domestic violence. His primary belief is that problems usually grow as responses to life stress. He works with clients explore the needs, values and strengths that fuel these responses so people can use them to spark new, concrete and meaningful courses of action.
Kelly's background is in narrative therapy, systemic family therapy, non-violent communication, and responsive practice. He has extensive experience working with teens and their families, though he finds these approaches highly useful in working with individuals and couples across a broad range of issues, as well. Kelly is a husband, a father, a son, a friend and a person in a changing world. All of these continue to both humble and educate him both as a person and as a therapist.