About Kane Duffy
I know what it’s like to sit on both sides of the therapy room.
I came to psychotherapy professionally after experiencing its importance personally. My own experience includes recovery from substance and behavioural addictions, as well as receiving psychotherapy and EMDR for difficult experiences earlier in my life. I know something of what it can take to ask for help, speak honestly about things that carry shame, and trust someone with parts of your life you may not have spoken about before.
Those experiences shaped how I think about therapy, but they are not what qualifies me to practise. My clinical work is grounded in professional training, accreditation, supervision and years of therapeutic experience.
They also gave me a clear idea of the kind of practice I wanted to build.
That became Resilience.
Two perspectives
Personal experience gave me perspective. Professional training gave me responsibility.
My own experience of therapy taught me what it feels like to arrive with things that are difficult to say out loud, and how much trust, pacing and readiness can matter.
Training and clinical work brought a different responsibility: to understand what is happening carefully, to work within my professional scope, and to choose an approach because it fits the person rather than simply because it is familiar.
I don’t think those two perspectives are interchangeable. I do think they can inform each other.
Lived experience
Perspective
Knowing something of what it can feel like to ask for help and begin talking honestly.
Training & supervision
Responsibility
Learning how to assess carefully, recognise professional limits and think critically about what kind of work may be appropriate.
Clinical practice
Application
Bringing those responsibilities into the room with an individual rather than applying the same formula to everyone.
My starting point is simple:
Treatment should follow understanding.Some lessons only become clear from both sides of the room.
Personal experience did not teach me how to practise. Professional training did that. But being a client changed what I notice: the importance of trust, the weight of shame, and the difference between applying a model and understanding the person in front of you.
Trust before technique.
Finding the right therapist mattered as much as the therapy itself. Trust made it possible to speak honestly, stay with difficult material and undertake work that would otherwise have been much harder.
Difficult things need somewhere they can be said.
Shame, addiction, compulsive behaviour and experiences kept hidden should be discussable without the person being reduced to them. Accountability and compassion do not have to be opposites.
Understanding before treatment.
A symptom, behaviour or diagnosis gives useful information, but it does not tell us everything about the person experiencing it. Treatment should follow understanding, rather than precede it.
Professionalism should still feel human.
Competence, boundaries and clinical judgement do not require distance. Clinical standards and human connection should strengthen one another rather than compete.
Professional training you can verify.
MSc Applied Psychology
Cognitive Processing Therapy
EMDRIA Approved EMDR Training
Hong Kong
Postgraduate Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
University West of Scotland
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Wanting to practise differently was not enough.
Personal experience gave me a clear sense of what mattered to me as a client. It did not qualify me to practise.
Professional training, supervision and clinical work gave me the knowledge and responsibility to assess carefully, work within professional scope, and choose an approach because it fits the person rather than simply because it is familiar.
I wanted to build the kind of practice I would have wanted when I was the person asking for help: clinically serious, honest about its limits, and human enough to make it possible to speak openly.