Psychological Therapy in the City of London and Online

I'm a Chartered Counselling Psychologist specialising in trauma, and an accredited EMDR and CBT therapist, with over 20 years' experience in the NHS, higher education and private practice.

Whatever brings someone to therapy, I work through a trauma lens. That means looking not only at the difficulty itself, but at the experiences that may be keeping it in place. For example:

Anxiety can carry the imprint of a time when the world felt unpredictable or unsafe.
OCD can gather force around an old sense of danger or excessive responsibility.
Depression can follow years of pushing feelings down, or of carrying more than was ever fair.
Low self-esteem, self-criticism and perfectionism often echo earlier messages about worth and acceptability.
Relationship difficulties frequently trace back to what closeness, conflict or dependence once felt like.
Grief and loss can reawaken earlier losses, or be complicated by the circumstances in which they happened.

Not every difficulty is rooted in trauma, but in my experience, understanding what lies beneath is often what makes lasting change possible.

These experiences are not always obvious, and they are often dismissed as not serious enough to count. They can sit behind a successful career and a life that appears to be going well. High standards, constant vigilance and staying in control serve well in demanding work, yet often first developed as ways of staying safe, and over time they can leave a feeling of being constantly on guard and a struggle to slow down.

It is also possible to understand exactly where a difficulty comes from and still feel the same. I have seen many times how EMDR can shift what insight alone could not, by working directly with the memories and beliefs that keep the past feeling current. Alongside EMDR, I draw on CBT and other evidence-based approaches, carefully paced and tailored to each person, including adapting the work to neurodivergent ways of thinking, communicating and processing.

The aim is for the past to take its proper place, so that it no longer dictates the present and there is more freedom to shape a life that feels like one's own.