Francine Mabondo, UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist

Francine Mabondo

SW11
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Francine Mabondo, UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist

Francine Mabondo

SW11
Shortlist Share

My Approach

My approach is integrative, which means that I draw on different therapeutic perspectives depending on you, your needs and what emerges in the work. I do not believe that one way of working fits everyone.

At the heart of my approach is the therapeutic relationship. I aim to offer a warm, safe and collaborative space where you can speak openly, feel understood and begin to make sense of what may be happening beneath the surface. Together, we may explore your current difficulties, earlier experiences, important relationships and unconscious patterns that continue to shape the way you feel about yourself and relate to others.

At times, our work may be reflective and exploratory. At other times, I may offer practical tools, invite you to notice what is happening in your body, suggest small experiments, or use creative ways of working when words alone do not feel enough. I will always work at a pace that feels manageable for you.

My approach is also informed by an anti-oppressive and culturally sensitive perspective. I am interested in the whole of your experience, including the impact of culture, identity, racism, discrimination, family expectations and the wider social context in which you live.

I see therapy as a process we create together. My role is not to tell you who you should be, but to help you understand yourself more deeply, shift perspectives that may no longer serve you and develop new ways of relating to yourself and others.

Ultimately, I hope therapy can help you feel more grounded, more connected to yourself and more able to live your life with greater freedom and choice.

About Me

I was born and raised in Paris, France, and come from a dual heritage. Growing up, I experienced both personal and systemic trauma, and as a young adult I struggled with depression, anxiety and questions of identity. These experiences contributed to my interest in psychotherapy and gave me an understanding of how difficult it can be to feel lost, disconnected or weighed down by emotional pain. They have also taught me that recovery and change are possible.

I have lived in the UK for over 25 years, where I initially developed a career in the arts before retraining as a psychotherapist. While my personal experiences inspired this path, it is my professional training and clinical experience over the last decade that have equipped me to understand the complexity of psychological distress and support people safely and effectively.

I am an Integrative Psychotherapist working with adults experiencing a range of difficulties, including anxiety, trauma, relationship problems, identity and cultural issues. I have worked across NHS, community and specialist mental health settings as well as in private practice.

I offer psychotherapy and counselling in English and French, both online and in person in London. I aim to provide a warm, thoughtful and collaborative space where you can make sense of your experiences, develop new ways of relating to yourself and others, and work towards meaningful and lasting change.

I work with

  • Companies
  • Individuals

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.

Do you often have a sense that something awful is going to happen? Do you experience panic attacks, or find that obsessive thoughts begin to take over? Perhaps you have started avoiding situations that make you anxious, and gradually life has become more challenging. You can't go out with friends because you might encounter something that triggers you. You can't go on holiday because of a particular fear. You avoid activities because being around other people feels too anxiety-provoking. Gradually, your life shrinks, and so can your sense of yourself. The good news is that anxiety can improve, and it does not have to continue controlling your life. There are effective ways of working with anxiety, and change is possible. As your therapist, I will offer you a calm and safe space to make sense of what feels too much. Together, we will explore what may be behind your anxiety and work towards shifting your perspective and finding steadier ground. I will also offer practical tools and small experiments to help you understand what works for you and develop different ways of responding when anxiety appears. As your understanding and confidence grow, you can begin to expand your world again and enjoy your life more fully.
Do you sometimes feel that there is no place where you can fully be yourself? Perhaps you have experienced racism, discrimination or exclusion because of your culture, ethnicity, identity, background or the way others perceive you. Over time, these experiences can affect your confidence, your sense of belonging and the way you see yourself. You may find yourself constantly adapting, questioning whether you fit in, feeling misunderstood, or carrying the exhaustion of having to explain yourself to others. This can leave you feeling isolated, angry, anxious or depressed, and at times wondering where you truly belong. Therapy can offer a space where these experiences are taken seriously and do not need to be minimised or explained away. As your therapist, I will help you explore the impact of discrimination, cultural expectations and belonging on your emotional life and relationships. Together, we can make sense of what you have experienced, separate what belongs to you from what has been imposed on you, and support you in developing a stronger and more secure sense of yourself. The aim is to help you feel more grounded in who you are, more able to recognise your own needs and values, and more confident in finding or creating spaces and relationships where you can feel seen, respected and able to belong.
Do you find that many of your relationships have ended badly, without really understanding why? Is it difficult to get on with colleagues or family members? Do you worry about ending up alone, or struggle to connect with others and find someone to love? As your therapist, I will help you understand what may be happening in your relationships. Together, we will explore what feels difficult, how long these patterns have been present, and where they may come from. I will offer you a safe space to offload, while helping you become more aware of unconscious relational patterns that may be affecting the way you connect with others. Ultimately, I will support you in developing a more secure and healthy relationship with yourself, so that you can build relationships with others that feel more meaningful, nurturing and fulfilling.
Are you training to become a counsellor or psychotherapist and finding that the process is bringing up more than you expected? Training can be exciting and meaningful, but it can also feel exposing, demanding and at times overwhelming. You may find yourself questioning whether you are good enough, comparing yourself with others, struggling with placement or academic pressures, or noticing that personal material is being stirred up through your work with clients. You may also feel caught between being a student, a developing practitioner and simply being yourself. As your therapist, I will offer you a space where you do not have to perform, impress or have the right answers. Together, we can explore what the training is bringing up for you, understand recurring patterns, make sense of difficult emotions and support the development of your own identity as a therapist. Having completed my own integrative psychotherapy training at the Metanoia Institute, I understand some of the particular challenges of integrative training, including working with different theoretical approaches while gradually developing your own way of practising. Therapy can become a place where you feel more grounded in yourself, more confident in your clinical work and more able to grow into the therapist you want to become. I also offer a reduced fee for trainee counsellors and psychotherapists.
Do you feel that something that happened in the past is still affecting the way you live today? Perhaps you feel constantly on edge, easily overwhelmed, disconnected from yourself or others, or find that certain situations trigger strong emotional or physical reactions that seem difficult to control. Trauma can affect the way you see yourself, other people and the world around you. You may find yourself avoiding situations, struggling to trust, feeling numb, becoming easily activated, or repeating patterns that you do not fully understand. At times, it can feel as though part of you is still living in what happened, even when another part of you knows that the danger has passed. Trauma does not have to define you or continue shaping your life in the same way. As your therapist, I will offer you a safe and containing space where we can explore your experiences at a pace that feels manageable. Together, we will make sense of what happened, how it has affected you, and what you may have needed at the time. I will also offer grounding tools and gentle experiments to help you feel safer in your body, develop new ways of responding to triggers and begin to shift the beliefs and patterns that may have developed as a result of trauma. Over time, the aim is not to erase what happened, but to help it take up less space in your present, so that you can feel more secure, more connected to yourself and more able to live your life with greater freedom.

Types of Therapies Offered

  • Integrative Psychotherapist

What I can help with

  • Anxiety
  • Cultural Issues
  • Relationships
  • Training
  • Trauma

Types of sessions

  • Face to Face - Long Term
  • Face to Face - Short Term
  • Online Therapy

Office

6 Northcote Road
6 Northcote Road, London SW11
SW11 1NT
United Kingdom (UK)

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Cost:

£85

Concession:

50

UKCP College

  • Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy College (HIPC)
Francine Mabondo

Francine Mabondo

SW11

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