About messy
Hello, I’m Alisa. For twenty years, I’ve worked with children, parents, carers, and individuals navigating the tensions, loyalties, ruptures, and unspoken rules that shape family life. My background spans social work, play therapy, psychosynthesis counselling, and humanitarian work in high‑pressure environments. Across all of it, I’ve seen how complex and messy being human can be.
My focus is on supporting people whose complicated family dynamics continue to shape their adult lives. Separately, I also offer parenting work, helping parents and carers reflect on how their own experiences may be influencing their relationship with their child.
My approach is trauma‑informed, relational, and rooted in psychosynthesis. I pay attention to attachment dynamics, nervous system responses, and the different parts of you that developed to cope, belong, or stay connected. I am both gentle and direct, and I believe therapy doesn’t need to feel clinical or performative. There is space for humour, joy, rage, silence, and tears that may not yet make sense.
At the heart of my work is a respect for complexity. People are rarely one thing. Families are rarely simple. Change is rarely linear. And this is a place where all of that is welcome.
Why messy?
As a child I was often called messy, and it left me feeling misunderstood, sometimes creating challenges in my relationships with family. Later, a therapist told me that messiness can also be a sign of creativity, and that perspective transformed how I saw myself.
Messy Therapy isn’t about tidying you up, it’s about exploring what your “mess” and “messy feelings” mean, the role they play in your life, and how understanding them can open space for change.
Contact Alisa
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and I will be in touch shortly. I can’t wait to hear from you!