My Approach

My core training is in Transactional Analysis, and my practice is psychodynamic and existential. Psychodynamic means I'm interested in what isn't immediately obvious — the parts of your inner life that operate outside your awareness but shape your choices anyway. Existential means I'm equally interested in what you're facing now: freedom, limitation, loss, mortality, and what you want your one life to be for.

I work relationally, aiming for a space of warmth, shared responsibility and profound respect. I don't sit outside your experience assessing it — I'm in the room, affected, and willing to think with you about what happens between us. Deep listening matters to me, and I think this work goes beyond empathic listening: I'll ask questions and challenge as well as support you.

Life isn't lived in a vacuum. How we feel, relate and suffer is entwined with the world around us, so I hold both your inner life — your dreams, patterns and history — and the external contexts of identity, power and inequality that shape your experience.

I came to this work after fifteen years as a solicitor, which taught me a good deal about how people cope, what they hide, and the cost of holding it all together.

What I work with

Some examples:

Repeated patterns where you feel stuck
Anxiety, including social anxiety, and stress
Processing earlier experiences
Life changes and transitions — children leaving home, menopause, coming out, a relationship ending, bereavement, changing career or city, redundancy, retirement
Low self-esteem and self-confidence, including a sense of being an imposter
Relationship difficulties with partners, friends or family; affairs and betrayals; separation and divorce
Work difficulties, including disciplinary processes and redundancy
Attachment difficulties
Bereavement, grief and loss
End-of-life, including caring for someone who is ill
Questions of meaning and purpose
Who I work with

I work with folk from different walks of life. My practice is rooted in an interest in intersectionality and the many layers of our identity, named or not. That may not be why you're seeking therapy, and that's fine too.

🏳️‍🌈 Many of my clients are from LGBTQ+ communities. I'm registered with Pink Therapy and have specific training in gender, sexuality and relationship diversity (GSRD) therapy, including relationship diversity such as consensual non-monogamy, and kink.

I work with a deep sense of compassion for those navigating life with autism, ADHD and/or other forms of neurodivergence.

🌿 I have an ecologically-minded practice, which means I consider place, planet and the non-human in my work. If that matters to you, it's welcome in the room.

You can find more information on my website, including my current availability: www.carinabadger.com

I see most clients weekly at the same day and time each week. I appreciate taking the first step and making contact with a counsellor or therapist can be daunting. It’s natural to feel uncomfortable or hesitant as it is a big commitment. I offer the first assessment session at half price, which is an opportunity for you to get a feel for how I work, and for us both to see if we would be a good fit to work together.

About Me

Weekly depth psychotherapy in South Manchester and online. I offer individual and group therapy.

Most people arrive at therapy because something isn't working and they've run out of ways to think about it on their own.

Sometimes there's a clear reason — a bereavement, a relationship ending, a change you didn't choose. More often it's harder to name.

Perhaps some of this sounds familiar:

You keep arriving at the same place by different routes
You struggle to make sense of your dynamics with others
You don't feel good enough
Shame holds you back
You've been anxious or stressed a lot of the time
You're facing a big change and can't get your bearings
You're managing, but only just
Life feels empty, without meaning or purpose
Many people come with nothing more specific than a sense that something is off, and no idea where to start. That's a perfectly good place to begin.

What depth psychotherapy is

Depth psychotherapy works from the view that much of what troubles us isn't sitting on the surface. Early in life we form a script — how to be, who we are, what others are like. It was built to protect us from what was overwhelming at the time, and it goes on running long after the original threat has gone. We adapt to the environment we grew up in, and then take that adaptation everywhere. Psychotherapy is where those patterns become visible, and in becoming visible, become open to change.

I work with

• Companies
• Groups
• Individuals
• Private healthcare referrals

Special Interests

Like all UKCP registered psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors I can work with a wide range of issues, but here are some areas in which I have a special interest or additional experience.

Types of Therapies Offered

• Transactional Analysis Psychotherapist

What I can help with

• ADHD
• Age-related Issues
• AIDS/HIV
• Anxiety
• Autism
• Bereavement
• Bullying
• Divorce
• Employment Difficulties
• Gender
• Identity Problems
• Mental Health Issues
• Obsessions
• Parents
• Relationships
• Separation
• Sexuality
• Spirituality
• Stress
• Terminal Illness
• Training
• Transgender
• Trauma
• Workplace Counselling