Psychoanalytic Therapy
Overcome trauma and become the person you want to be.
Laura Ruaro, PSYD
My Approach
I work with people experiencing anxiety, depression, or relationship challenges from the psychoanalytic perspective, which focuses on understanding the deep relational dynamics and the stories that are on the way of people moving forward and living a meaningful life. My specialties include trauma healing, perinatal psychology (including pre-postpartum mood disorders and infertility), and couple therapy. I also provide psychotherapy in my Italian language. I practice an experiential and in-depth form of therapy focused on feelings, understanding the unconscious, and resolving developmental blocks and attachment insecurities. I integrate EMDR sessions in the treatment to understand and mitigate the impact of trauma.
Appointments will be once or twice per week, starting with twice a week if symptoms are active and disruptive. Long-term psychodynamic therapy has been found effective in the treatment of depression and anxiety disorder, and unlike short term psychotherapy, its benefits stick in the long term.
My Approach to Couples Therapy
I work with couples from an Emotionally Focused Therapy lens, looking at how each partner’s deep wounds and insecure attachment can be healed in the context of the relationship. My main goal is to help couples communicate authentically, so that their intimacy deepens. In couples sessions, we will typically focus on current conflicts or long-term negative cycles and understand them before practicing in the session effective ways to communicate or experience the conflict.
Work with couples usually starts once a week, and transitions to twice a month or monthly appointments once the couple feels confident in their communication skills. I stay available for check-ins for couples in the long term.
Qualifications & Training
Doctor of Counseling Psychology (Psy.D.) - London Metropolitan University
Bachelor of Science in Psychology (B.Sc.)
Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Language and Literature (B.A.)
Education
Previous Professional Experience
Prior to entering private practice in 2018, I gained experience of working as a psychologist with diverse populations and diagnoses at the following clinics:
Glendale Adventist Family Medical Center
Wright Institute Los Angeles
Family Therapy Clinic, Southern Londan and Maudsley NHS Trust (UK)
Renal Unit, Royal Free Hospital (UK)
Tower Hamlets Perinatal Mental Health Team, East London NHS Mental Health Trust (UK)
Psychological Therapies in Primary Care, South West London & St George’s Mental Health Trust (UK)
Avalon Ward, Eating Disorder Unit, Springfield University Hospital (UK)
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)
Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Maternal Mental Health (PMH-C)
Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT-C)
Group Therapy
Grief Therapy
Evidence-Based Practices & Certifications
Specialty Areas of Practice
My specialty areas of practice include trauma (including childhood and intergenerational), couples therapy, Perinatal Psychology (including pre and postpartum mood disorders and infertility), and psychotherapy in Italian. In addition to these specialty areas, I have experience working with depression, anxiety disorders (including OCD), grief, failure to launch or creativity blocks, life transitions, and low self-esteem.
Trauma
Mental health symptoms can often be traced back to trauma. When trauma occurs, it can get locked in the brain in its original form, and can affect the person’s sense of self for years, until it is opened up and reprocessed. I have experience helping people who experience trauma both with long psychoanalytic therapy (preferable with complex childhood trauma) and with Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) (preferable with active PTSD symptoms and with single or adult trauma incidents).
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing is a powerful technique for trauma resolution and integration. EMDR sessions are more structured and do not involve traditional talk therapy except for the first session and the last ten minutes of each session. EMDR involves thinking of a key memory and allowing the mind to wander whilst following a visual, auditory or tactile bilateral stimulation. EMDR needs to happen in the context of a safe and established therapeutic relationship as past emotions locked into the traumatic memories can surface during the treatment.
Couples Therapy
I work with couples from an Emotionally Focused Therapy lens, looking at how each partner’s deep wounds and insecure attachment can be healed in the context of the relationship. Additionally, I help couples catalyze the power of the relationship towards each partner’s process of individuation and growth. My main goal is to help couples communicate authentically and to break down the negative or unfulfilling cycles of interaction, so that their intimacy deepens and their playfulness increases. During sessions, we will typically focus on current conflicts and understand them in the context of each partner’s relational history before practicing effective ways to work through conflict. Couples therapy can be deeply transformative but requires energy and willingness to take risks and let go of established ways of thinking and acting toward one another.
Ideally, couples commit to weekly sessions for at least the first three months of treatment. Couples work can transition to twice per month or monthly appointments once the couple feels confident in their communication skills. I remain available for check-ins for couples who have completed therapy as well.
Parinatal Psychology
I am passionate about supporting mothers as a way to foster mental health in future generations. My background includes work in a Perinatal Mental Health team, research/examination of the experiences of therapy of mothers who suffered postpartum depression, and ongoing training and conferences in maternal mental health.
Becoming a mother entails a major psychological shift in the mother's identity and role in society. Often mothers experience a sense of loss of their previous selves. The narratives of motherhood present in Western society create stressful and unrealistic expectations on mothers and are often detrimental to mothers' sense of power and identity. Additionally, the transition to motherhood often brings to awareness unprocessed early, sometimes inter-generational, trauma. Talking through these difficult psychological challenges can promote mental health in the mother and in the baby and prevent inter-generational transmission of trauma.
I also see the infertility treatment journey as part of the perinatal journey of becoming a mother. People receiving infertility treatment often experience shame and social isolation and have to work through multiple losses that can trigger symptoms of depression. Psychotherapy can help mitigate the extreme stress of the infertility journey by providing a centering and empowering space and can catalyze stress and grief towards a deep healing process.
Psicoterapia in Italiano
Ai miei connazionali che preferiscono parlare italiano offro l'opportunita' di esprimersi nella nostra lingua.
Il mio approccio alla psicoterapia
Lavoro con adulti, coppie con una lente psicodinamica, secondo la quale i sintomi originano nei problemi delle relazioni infantili. Tramite una forte relazione terapeutica potremmo risolvere le dinamiche di fondo che ostacolano lo sviluppo e il movimento verso una vita significativa e soddisfacente. Oltre all’approccio psicodinamico, ho ricevuto formazione nelle terapia cognitiva/comportamentale, che e’ indicata nel trattamento degli attacchi di panico e del disturbo ossessivo compulsivo. Sono anche qualificata nel metodo EMDR, per il trattamento delle psicopatologie legate ai traumi.
Lavoro con individui che soffrono di depressione, ansia, sintomi derivanti da traumi infantili o traumi adulti, difficolta’ relazionali, transizioni difficili o lutti. Sono specializzata nella psicologia perinatale, e’ la mia passione preparare e assistere le mamme e le coppie nella spesso difficile transizione alla genitorialita’. Offro supporto psicologico ai genitori, e aiuto a promuovere l’attaccamento tra bambini e genitori.
Sono vissuta in diversi paesi, e posso capire l’impatto della migrazione, lo stress dell’adattamento a una cultura diversa, e le sfide associate alle coppie interraziali, interculturali e interconfessionali.