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Vanessa Bokanowski - Psychologist in Brussels

There is no deep and lasting change if we ignore the unconscious.

I offer in-depth work combining three complementary approaches, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, IFS and Breathwork, for care that is both psychological and somatic.

Consultations by appointment only — 1093, Chaussée de Waterloo, 1180 Uccle

Vanessa Bokanowski, psychotherapist in Uccle - Brussels

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy · IFS · Breathwork

The body remembers what the mind forgets.

Bessel van der Kolk
  • Individual therapy
  • Couple therapy
  • Conscious connected breathing session
  • Breathwork groups

01About

Vanessa Bokanowski

Clinical psychologist and psychotherapist

I studied psychology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, then trained in psychotherapy in Geneva. Drawn to the psychology of attachment and to transgenerational patterns, I trained in family and couple therapy: what repeats within us also repeats in our relationships. I then lived abroad and practised internationally, with people whose histories spanned several countries and several generations.

Those years taught me something I would not have understood otherwise: trauma does not dissolve through understanding. You can know your own history, analyse it finely, and go on reliving it.

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Psychologist registered with the Belgian Psychologists Commission
Company number:
1000.096.526
Belgian Psychologists Commission:
742239163
Visa no.:
406057
Patients from:
Uccle, Rhode-Saint-Genèse, Linkebeek, Beersel, Waterloo

02 — Four ways of working together

Therapies

Individual therapy

Without understanding, we repeat.
Without feeling, we fade.

Our suffering lives in parts of us built up over time. Some carry our deepest wounds, others protect them by keeping us in repetition: of a symptom, of a relational pattern, of a traumatic anchoring. Combining breathwork and IFS allows deep work, uniting body and mind, and bringing movement back session after session.

50 minutes

Couple therapy

A couple is the meeting of two histories, of two unconscious minds.

The choice of a partner is never a matter of chance. The unconscious seeks to replay old scenarios there, hoping they will finally find a favourable outcome. But in this game, each partner locks the other into a role that does not resemble them, yet which they end up taking on, gradually losing their own identity. The system freezes, the positions no longer move.

Therapy consists of undoing these vicious circles by helping each partner find their place again, so that the couple becomes once more a place of fulfilment and growth.

60 minutes

Conscious connected breathing session

Breathing opens what words alone cannot reach.

Conscious connected breathing gives access to modified states of consciousness and is at the centre of the therapeutic process. The unconscious becomes more malleable, allowing the release of emotional and traumatic charges, including at the bodily level, as well as the re-experiencing of preverbal memories.

A time of preparation, to clarify one's intentions, and a time of integration, to make sense of what has emerged, are essential.

75 minutes

Breathwork groups

Breathing together to heal is a very ancient gesture.

In a group, conscious connected breathing takes on another dimension. Breathing together to heal is a very ancient gesture, present in shamanic traditions on every continent. The group acts as a collective container that supports the healing process.

Everyone is alone in their experience, and yet carried by that of the others. A collective vibration sets in, supporting each person's individual power of transformation. Often, what we would not dare to face alone emerges more easily in the presence of others engaged in their own process. A sharing circle at the end of the sessions can help reveal what we do not see of ourselves.

Upcoming dates to be announced.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

Carl Gustav Jung
The consulting room

The consulting room

A quiet space in the heart of Uccle.

Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.

Peter Levine

04 — Contact

Make an appointment

Make an appointment

WhatsApp / SMS only 0472 67 39 76

1093, Chaussée de Waterloo — 1180 Uccle (Bruxelles), Belgique View on Google Maps