Maaike van Leur

I consider it a privilege to connect with people and to temporarily walk alongside them on their life path. My own experiences as a partner and a mother to three daughters help me as I guide others in their personal development.

Haptotherapy

Haptotherapy is a person-oriented therapy in which the body is the main instrument. Touching is the most direct and powerful way to come into contact with your own emotions; it brings you closer to yourself and to what you truly feel. This is why touching is the tool of the haptotherapist.

Pregnancy guidance

Connecting with yourself, each other and the baby will help you experience the pregnancy more consciously and the associated discomforts of pregnancy different, milder. It has been found that women who can maintain contact with their (lower) body during childbirth are better capable of softening their bodies and experience less pain and anxiety. The partner, in supporting the mother through touch and by inviting her to feel towards the pain, will play a more important role than in conventional guidance.

Relationship counselling

Staying true to yourself will help your self-confidence grow. Self-confidence enables you to entrust yourself to the other, which is important in a (romantic) relationship. You could call this “standing on your own two feet, in contact with your partner”. This form of autonomy is what we aim for in haptonomic relationship counselling; being in contact with yourself, and connect from there with the other.