Samantha McDonnell

Sam is a Certified Sensorimotor Psychotherapist (SP) and Certified Trauma-Informed Stabilisation Treatment (TIST) Therapist, originally training in Humanistic Psychotherapy. She specialises in CPTSD, dissociation, and early attachment injury. Sam has studied extensively with Janina Fisher in both TIST and Advanced SP for Complex Trauma and Dissociative Disorders. She is also a Level 3 Deep Brain Reorienting Therapist, Level 3 Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic IFS and IFIO (IFS for couples) Therapist, and is trained in Attachment-Focused EMDR. She integrates these modalities with Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, on an individual basis.

Sam supports clients to understand their responses to traumatising experiences as natural expressions of the body’s instinctive survival systems. Her holistic, body-oriented approach attends to the somatic, emotional, and psychological layers of unresolved trauma—particularly the deeply held, often unconscious patterns that traditional talk therapy doesn't fully reach.

Working somatically allows clients to gently access the ‘felt sense’ of what they have been carrying—those embodied impressions, emotions, and impulses that shape how they experience themselves and the world. By engaging the right-brain, relational aspects of therapy through creative methods such as sand tray, drawing, imagery, and movement, Sam helps clients make contact with these inner experiences in a way that feels safe, grounded, and deeply attuned.