Before Insightful Life therapy centres existed, I was a therapist looking for somewhere suitable and private to work.
I’d spent years working from an established and beautiful clinic in Sandbach – it was a place I loved working from, and felt privileged to do so – and when it closed, I suddenly found myself in the slightly terrifying position of being ‘homeless’ with nowhere to take my clients.
So I started looking for somewhere else, and quickly discovered that finding a genuinely good therapy space was much harder than I had anticipated. There were rooms available, with chairs, four walls etc. But I wasn’t looking for just a room.
I wanted somewhere comfortable, cosy, welcoming and professional. Somewhere that understood what therapeutic work requires. Not an easy task, it turns out! Eventually I stopped looking for it and, instead, decided to create it.
What initially began as a solution to my own problem turned out to become something other practitioners wanted too. When I found a suitable space in nearby Middlewich that had two rooms, I reached out to a few therapists I knew and soon had a handful of practitioners using the extra space.
Before long – the space was full and I had a waiting list. So, I started my search again…this time in Sandbach.
I found a little room in a shared building on an industrial park. Not perfect, but a good enough start. Again, word spread, and I was soon full again. Ok! Time for something bigger. Eventually, I found it. A beautiful, private building, in a great location in Sandbach, full of character and its own story to tell.
We have grown from strength to strength. Along the way, we have incorporated events and training for therapists and wellbeing practitioners. We have a thriving community, and my favourite thing is seeing how much everyone gets along.
My background is a slightly unusual combination of therapy, hospitality, childcare, community care and trauma-informed work, and hospitality in particular has probably influenced Insightful Life more than I initially realised. It taught me to notice small things that make people feel welcomed and looked after.
A therapy room definitely doesn’t need to be clinical or impersonal. It needs to feel safe, comfortable and psychologically contained. And practitioners need somewhere that works practically as well as somewhere that looks good.
The tea and coffee, the snacks, the books, the resources, the comfortable furniture, the online booking system, the toiletries in the bathrooms – none of these things are spectacularly revolutionary individually. Together, they make a big difference to how safe, regulated and secure someone can feel.
We’re now well established in Middlewich and Sandbach, with a growing community of independent practitioners using our spaces, and we’re still growing.
I’m now developing a model about how to best support therapeutic practitioners in their work, and I continue to be interested and invested in building spaces where practitioners can do their best work without having to take on the expense, administration and responsibility of everything themselves.
I’m proud of the community I’ve created, and I’m excited to see what happens next. Watch this space!
If you’d like to know more about what we have on offer for professionals, contact us here.
If you’re interested in learning more about how I work therapeutically, follow this link to my website.
Insightful Life 