Eileen Toibin MA Psychotherapist

Psychotherapy, Counselling and Professional Supervision Service in Crouch End, North London

My name is Eileen Toibin and I have been working as a psychotherapist for fifteen years. I am based in Crouch End, very close to the Clock Tower. (Nearest Tubes: Finsbury Park, Archway, Highgate and Turnpike Lane). I offer psychotherapy and a counselling service in this part of North London. I also offer professional supervision to psychotherapists and counsellors who are in training, or, who are trained but who wish to develop a deeper understanding of the psychoanalytic method.

I am trained as a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. This means I offer an approach that seeks to understand how present day problems can have their origin in thoughts and feelings that are unconscious. I specialize in four areas:

Relationship Difficulties. Do you feel overwhelmed in your relationship or claustrophobic? These are examples of uncomfortable feelings which threaten successful relationships. Or, are you struggling with complex feelings when parenting your children? Do you ever feel that you are behaving in the same was as your mother or father did and it was something you never wished to do?

Creativity. The question of what enables the creative process, and the associated concern of what inhibits this process, is one of my primary interests. I believe a greater understanding of oneself - of why we behave in certain ways or are attached to certain thoughts, or feelings, or beliefs - is likely to liberate and consolidate creative endeavors like composition, playing an instrument professionally or writing. I therefore work with writers who have writers’ block and actors and musicians who experience performance anxiety.

Sexual Difficulties. These can be of a more general nature e.g. worries about sexual performance or a more specific concerns, e.g. if you are unsure about your sexual orientation, or you are unable to stop using Internet Pornography, or you feel unable to consummate a sexual relationship. I was, for eight years, part of a seminar group at the Portman Clinic which specializes in understanding sexual 'acting out'. (Portman and Tavistock NHS Trust)

Traumatic Experiences i.e. people who have suffered from sexual, physical and emotional abuse. This includes people who in adult life may have engaged in behaviour that is injurious to themselves. It also includes people who experience a great deal of anxiety and those who can feel very frightened, or tense, in everyday life.

Professional Supervision is offered to psychotherapy and counselling trainees and to psychologists. This includes those those who are training in the NHS and those trainees who have a background in psychology, or are integrative psychotherapists who wish to develop proficiency in a psychoanalytic module that may be part of their training. Intensive psychoanalytic supervision is offered to psychoanalytic psychotherapists and to trainees in this discipline.

Psychotherapy in Crouch End: Why should you choose a psychoanalytic psychotherapy?

Because it is not a superficial fix. The pain caused by emotional conflicts is real and the states of mind associated with mental pain are often debilitating.

Because it looks at your problems in great depth and offers a different understanding of, and definition of personality, by acknowledging internal mental struggles with issues like mortality and the containment of extreme emotions, e.g., rage, sadness, jealous and loss. This approach takes time and care before coming to any formulation of a problem.

Because when you gain an insight into feelings and thoughts you had been unaware of it often brings a sense of profound relief and gives you a stronger sense of who you are. This is usually the first step towards living a life that is truly one’s own.

I work in private practice and as a Senior Adult Psychotherapist in the NHS where I have supervised psychiatrists training in psychotherapy and counsellors who who offered counselling to NHS patients. I was the Assessment Therapist at The British Performing Arts Medicine Trust from 1998-2007 and I still carry out assessments for BAPAM. This means I undertake the initial assessment when a performer contacts BAPAM with an emotional problem that may be affecting their professional performance.

I have supervised CBT practitioners in the NHS and I sometimes refer performers who come to BAPAM to cognitive therapists: and I can, in my private practice, occasionally offer a cognitive approach if there is a specific focused problem that is of concern to the person who comes to see me.

How to find me?. (www.crouchendpsychotherapy.co.uk)
Crouch End is a short bus ride from three tube stations: Finsbury Park (Victoria and Piccadilly line) and from Archway (Northern line) and Turnpike Lane (Piccadilly line). I am a 5-minute walk from Hornsey BR and a two-stop bus ride from Crouch End BR. I am very close to a number of areas in North London: Holloway, Archway and Highgate.