My Approach

My approach is primarily existential and relational, with close attention to embodied experience. My work is trauma-informed, neurodiversity-affirming and open to questions of spirituality, meaning and transcendence where these are important to the person I am working with.

My broader psychotherapy training also means that my work has been informed by humanistic and integrative, psychoanalytic and psychodynamic traditions, although existential-phenomenological psychotherapy has become my principal orientation.

I do not begin from the assumption that a person needs to be fixed or reduced to a collection of symptoms. I am interested in understanding difficulties within the context of a whole life: what you have experienced, how you learned to survive, the relationships and environments that shaped you, and what those adaptations may now be costing.

The therapeutic relationship is central to my work. I value genuine encounter, curiosity, honesty and difference. Therapy is not something I simply apply to another person. It is a collaborative exploration in which understanding and new possibilities can emerge through the relationship between us.

Alongside thoughts and emotions, we may attend to bodily experience, relationships, sexuality, family and ancestral histories, culture, identity, values, creativity and the wider social worlds in which a person lives.

Existential psychotherapy also makes room for questions that cannot always be resolved by technique: freedom and responsibility, uncertainty, love and loneliness, meaning, loss, ageing, mortality, choice and the passing of time.

When trauma or adversity has shaped someone's life, I am interested not simply in asking “What is wrong?”, but in understanding what happened, how you survived, what those adaptations protected, and what might now become possible.

I believe psychotherapy can involve more than symptom reduction. Relief from distress is important, but deeper therapeutic work can also involve developing greater self-trust and freedom, reclaiming neglected parts of ourselves, making choices with greater ownership, and becoming more able to live with uncertainty and respond to change.

Therapy need not concern itself only with suffering. Joy, humour, pleasure, beauty, intimacy, creativity, achievement, hope and wonder are equally part of what makes a human life worth living.

Ultimately, my hope is not that therapy makes someone into a different person, or leads to a life in which everything is finally resolved. Rather, it can help people become more fully themselves and more deeply alive within the uncertainty, change and possibility of the life they actually have.

About Me

I work with thoughtful adults seeking not only relief from psychological distress, but a deeper understanding of themselves, their relationships and how they want to live.

People come to me with anxiety, depression, complex and developmental trauma, experiences of emotional, psychological, physical or sexual abuse, coercive or controlling relationships, neurodivergence including ADHD and autism, grief and loss, relationship difficulties, chronic or serious physical illness, pain, identity questions and significant life transitions.

Others find it harder to name what brings them to therapy.

Life may appear successful or well managed from the outside, yet feel constrained, disconnected or somehow not fully one's own. You may understand yourself extremely well intellectually but find that insight alone has not changed the patterns in which you find yourself. You may be questioning meaning, purpose, belonging, ageing, mortality, or what you want from the next part of your life.

I am a UKCP Registered Existential Psychotherapist and Registered Member MBACP.

I trained at Regent’s College London, now Regent’s University London, within the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology. My earlier psychotherapy training was broad and included humanistic and integrative, psychoanalytic and psychodynamic, and existential-phenomenological approaches, leading to the Postgraduate Diploma in Psychotherapy and Counselling.

I subsequently specialised in existential psychotherapy and completed the Advanced Diploma in Existential Psychotherapy (ADEP) at Regent’s. My academic background also includes a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from the University of Bedfordshire.

I have worked clinically since 2015 and have been in private practice since March 2017. My professional background also includes work with Mind, voluntary work with Samaritans, and wider experience across mental health and social care. These experiences have contributed to my understanding of psychological distress, crisis, trauma, disability, chronic illness, neurodivergence and the many ways in which people adapt to difficult circumstances.

My initial training has been followed by extensive continuing professional development, particularly in complex trauma, neurodivergence, embodied and affect-based approaches, grief and bereavement, sexual violence, attachment, shame and existential psychotherapy.

I am interested in the whole person rather than a diagnosis in isolation. Therapy can involve understanding suffering and survival, but also developing greater self-trust, authenticity, freedom and choice, reconnecting with creativity, joy and relationships, and becoming more able to live fully within a life that continues to change.

I work with

• Companies
• Couples
• Families
• 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

• Existential Psychotherapist

What I can help with

• Abuse
• ADHD
• Age-related Issues
• Anxiety
• Autism
• Bereavement
• Chronic Illness
• Cultural Issues
• Depression
• Disability
• Domestic Violence
• Employment Difficulties
• Health-related Issues
• Identity Problems
• Mental Health Issues
• Physical Abuse
• Post-Traumatic Stress
• Relationships
• Sexual Abuse
• Sexuality
• Spirituality
• Stress
• Trauma
• Workplace Counselling