Psychology & Shamanism
Claire Marie BSc, Dip(Couns.Psych), MSc(Hons), CPsychol

About Myself

I am a Chartered Applied BPS Psychologist registered as a Counselling Psychologist with the Health Professional Council (HPC). I trained as an Historian in Paris (la Sorbonne) and as a Transcultural Psychologist with the French Open University. In the last ten years I have practiced in the field of Mental Health; in Community Psychiatry, Family Therapy, Drug and Alcohol Service and more recently in Occupational Health and Pain Management (NHS).

When I was twenty, I lived in Berlin from where I travelled to Central Asia, studying Russian and Medieval Ethnographical journey accounts about the Nomadic people of Central Asia. Years later, when working in the Uk, I encountered the Mexican Nahuatl Tradition and studied for two years with Eloxotil Sanchez. The Nahuatl Medicine helped me make sense of my energetical experience and fundamentally transformed my vision of life and consequently my practice as a psychologist.

In the last five years, my initiation has taken different forms and I consider it to be an ongoing process. I work with dreams and the Spirit (energy) of Nature. Fire is a great teacher. The spirits of the Russian land and Siberia have also a strong influence on my practice.

In the rational world of western psychology it is not usually expected of a Psychologist to admit to being guided by other forces than the rational. ‘Holistic intervention’, ‘integrative practice’, ‘ecopsychology’ and 'energy spychology' are other ways of describing my practice.

However by being open about the fact that my practice is strongly influenced and shaped by shamanic traditions without denying my Western heritage as a Psychologist, I am hoping to open a debate which include Academic Research. I would love shamanic practice to be opened to the scientific scruteny, thereby gaining a wider access to the shaping of a culture where ancients and modern practices can integrate and participate in the transformation of our world.

How do I Work?

I always start from the perspective of my patient/client and it is their story which is at the center of my practice.

Whether I work face to face, in my NHS job, via Skype, telephone, or Email my priority is to develop a relationship and create a space where the individual can feel safe, acknowledged, heard and respected for who they are.

I use my psychological knowledge and training to come to a shared understanding of the individual’s problem which informs the direction our intervention might take (person centered, psychodynamic, systemic, narrative, solution focused). This formulation is often completed with an energetical formulation. Using my ability to constantly journey through the four levels of manifestation (physical, mental, mythical and spiritual), my aim is to employ mirroring to enable the client to experience themselves through the four levels of manifestation allowing these different levels to interact together to bring about transformation and renewal.

As a private practitioner, I may go further (depending on what my client's wishes and requests) and interpret the energetical field to identify the nature of the individual’s spiritual journey and the connections they may have made beyond the visible world.

Working as a psychologist or as a shaman can sometimes be two entirely different practices. In my NHS work, I am employed to work as a psychologist, and I use traditional western models and techniques, my shamanic abilities only serving as a subtle cradle for the intervention. I always respect the context of my intervention.

In my private practice, I am both a psychologist and a shaman and therefore integrate the western and ancestral traditions as I am describing it here.
I perform spirit retrieval, sometimes as an individual session or as part of ‘normal’ talking therapy.

My main ethos is to serve my patients and clients, and it is their willingness to engage who evoke in me what will be beneficial for their healing process.

Thanking my guides and teachers

No Shaman or Psychologist exists without the contribution of all the Thinkers, Teachers, Masters and Ancestors who have preceded them.

I therefore wish to thank all those individuals, teachers, friends and spirits who have had an important bearing on who I am, both as a psychologist or a shaman. I do so in no special order and may forget some.

D. Winnicott, Sacha Iourchenko, Simon Wolf, Eloxochitl Sanchez, Marie-Liesse Perrotin, Alexandre Sembrisky, James Hillman, Toby Nathan, John E. Nelson, Joanna Macy, Harold Searles, Natacha Redina, Becks Halkes, Jain Ritchie, Cathy Savage, Marcella. Also The spirit of Khum Nye, the Himalayan Mountains, the Tuvan ancestors, Sirius, Grand-Father Fire, Grand-Mother Ocean, especially the spirit of the Oak, the spirit of the Cherry Tree, the village of Tepozlan in Mexico, my children Zarah and Emile and my partner Nick Pope, and last but not least, all my patients whose openness of heart remains my greatest Teacher.