10 Questions with Sirini Kularatne-Samarapathi

• What led you to choose psychotherapy or counselling as a profession?

• I have had an interest from a very young age to connect with people - to be present in their difficulties, to sit with their uncomfortable emotions. I guess that was what eventually got transpired in me becoming a professional counsellor. My Buddhist practises of compassion, loving kindness, meditation and mindful awareness practices paved the way for my internal development and my profession to be part and parcel of the same.

• Which philosophical approaches have influenced your professional/personal development?

• I started my Buddhist practises of meditation, mindful awareness, deep reflection of going within around the tender age of 12 years. This foundation grew up through the adolescent years, changes through life, lifestyles and so on. It has enabled me to find balance, contentment and equanimity within myself and with the World that I engage with. Today I bring this background into my work, together with different qualifications and extensive employment experience to assist those who walk with me at different times and in different situations in their lives.

• Which particular aspects of health or the human journey are you interested in?

• I consider a person as a whole. Every individual is a unique person with unique characteristics and life experiences. Hence every experience, every situation and every moment can make a significant impact to an individual's life. Whatever is important to that individual from any part of the life journey is where I will start work with. The uniqueness of an individual and their experiences cannot be measured, hence every aspect of their life is important. The whole person is who I meet at each session, moving fluidly with them to explore whatever they uncover as they continue through their journey, discovery and healing process.
  
  Therefore, I am interested in all aspects of the whole person including practical, physical, philosophical, emotional, psychological, etc. working with the whole person in a holistic manner.

• What method/s do you use?

• I work with an eclectic tool box, using mindful awareness techniques based in evidence based practices, with a foundation of compassion. Compassionate foundation of engagement with unconditional positive regard, bearing witness and being present, holding a trusting space to whatever that unfolds.
  
  Holding an open space for the client to feel comfortable in bringing whatever they want to bring in to the trusted and open space. I work with a person centred approach using psycho-ed for clarity, evidence based therapies such as CBT, gentle Gestalt to bring clarity of a disparities, psycho-somatic work to work with body held memories that can assist clear trauma without the intense distress of retriggering.
  
  Some other evidence based, mindful awareness therapies that I use are ACT, DBT, BT, etc incorporating the mindfulness components of these therapies to gain inner development and healing for individuals at they process and grow from within.

• When do you think the client will start to feel that progress is being made?

• Each session will be used for 'tracking' using tools for client to map their progress. This is an important part of therapy for clients to know if they are benefiting from the engagement and the therapeutic interventions. This is what would motivate and keep the client focused and engaged in therapy.
  
  However, it is my role as a counsellor to facilitate that process while sitting by their side to acknowledge growth, but also blocks that might prevent growth. It is importnat to know that blocks uncovered in therapy can be the most important to work that gets done. Providing a trusted safe space to move through those blocks, can at times be the turning point a person needed to rise and soar to heights that they didn't belive they could.
  
  It is also important to be aware that as clients move through therapy, they could tread into new unknown territory where for the first time they are trusted and safe, which could be quite daunting and overwhelming to acknowledge. Hence it is important that the client and counsellor walk each step of the way together side by side.

• How has therapy made you a better person?

• My spiritual practice of self-awareness, and working with my inner development, I have found that there are many ways to face the challenges that come our way. The self practice has helped me change in the way I approach life and different situations. Through this process, I have developed as a person, matured as an individual, and approach to life challenges has changed. I am able to look at them with confidence, changing the things I can and, finding ways to engage and approach with what I can't change in order to maintain my inner sense of peace and balance. The compassionate foundation has changed me within and I bring that authenticity to the space as a counsellor to bare witness and walk with the pain of others.

• What do you like most about being a therapist?

• The ability to create a space for people to be who they are, and bring whatever the pain they would like to unfold knowing that they will be heard. To me one of the most important aspects about therapy is that space, which is open and compassionate, unconditional, empathic - where people feel safe to trust. That trusting non-judgemental space, can create opportunities for safe deeper exploration of self and growth from within. As a counsellor it is rewarding to sit back and see those individuals who walked with you stretch their wings to fly..

• Do you ever have 'bad hair' days?

• Life is change, everyone has their moments where life throws things that can be faced head on, or at times one has to step back and take another look at. That is what makes me human, and brings in the authenticity to the counselling space. My confidence within myself helps me to know that everything is a part of the bigger picture and work with what is presented at the time in this moment. My stillness practices help me keep the inner equilibrium. These are pracitces I have developed over the years, which I bring as tools to support those individuals who come into the therapeutic space. I focus on thoughts, emotions, lived experiences in order to enhanse inner strengths and facilitate inner development through them.
  

• What do you think is the most significant problem we face, in the world today?

• I think the world has many challenges. We go through different developmental stages in life and in that process each individual will be experiencing life in their own unique way. Nothing is concrete in its presentation, hence different people will experience situations in their own way, which is unique to each individual. It is this uniqueness that as a therapist that I choose to work with. Each individual's experience is authentic, valid and significant for that individual, hence it is the most significant problem / issue / challenge in that moment for the therapeutic space!

• Can you share the name of a book, film, song, event or work of art that inspires you?

• Ajahn Brahmavanso’s book of ‘opening the door to your heart’. It contains little stories with opportunities for deep reflections presented in a unique way inviting readers to look at life in a deep and meaning full way.
  Elton John's - Goodbye English Rose written for Princess Diana - highlights the immense potential one person has in changing the World to the better. Her courage, compassion to heal the hearts and minds of those who she knew and those who she didn't.
  Stage drama by Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Phantom of the Opera is one of my favourites (Marina Prior did it jusitce). The story of pain and tragedy put together capturing the audience in the suspence of this intense human experience of one's emotions. The experience of tragedy, love, pain, grief and every other emotion, how it all has a rippled effect on others and their community.