My approach
You know something’s wrong. You might even know what it is. You may have read all the books and listened to all the podcasts, but the patterns that need to change just seem to stay the same no matter what you do.
In our sessions, I draw on a range of approaches to help move beyond surface level insight into these patterns into what’s keeping you stuck and towards making meaningful change in your life.
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You know something’s wrong. You might even know what it is. You may have read all the books and listened to all the podcasts.
It’s often these clients who begin therapy with a deep sense of languishing and lost potential despite working hard on themselves. If this is you, then it might not feel dramatic enough to feel like a crisis, but the emptiness and disappointment with life doesn’t seem to go away all the same. It might feel like the meaning and purpose you thought you’d have found by now still hasn’t arrived. Instead you find yourself going through the motions, stuck in unfulfilling roles and relationships while somehow still feeling disconnected from yourself and different from others in a way that feels harder to ignore. Something feels missing.
But what happens now? Is this really all there is? These are the kinds of questions that bring people into therapy with me.
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Working with me means we won’t shy away from how daily life can bring us back to the bigger questions we’re afraid to think about. We will go at a pace that feels safe and manageable to work with these questions by exploring the deeper personal and social frameworks through which you are making sense of your struggles, and think about how to choose a different path when these frameworks feel like they are working against you and self-awareness alone hasn’t gotten you there.
I work drawing from a range of therapeutic approaches but mostly existential and relational psychodynamic frameworks, as well as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for when more structured guidance could be helpful. This means we’ll pay attention to the patterns shaping how you experience yourself and the people around you, where those patterns came from, and how to move beyond just awareness and towards a different kind of life.
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I don’t shy away from the role that culture and systemic factors play in mental health. But I don’t bring these into the room uncritically or with my own agenda either. Together we explore your story at your pace and on your terms.
My therapy philosophy.
I don't believe our difficulties exist in isolation from the lives we live. Many of the struggles people bring to therapy develop within the context of their relationships, families, communities, cultures, and the wider world around them. From an early age, we all receive messages about who we should be, what is expected of us, what makes us worthy, and what parts of ourselves are acceptable. These messages can come from family, culture, religion, social expectations, and the many systems we live within. They often help us find belonging and make sense of the world. At the same time, they can sometimes leave us feeling disconnected from our own needs, values, or sense of self.
For some people, this might show up as constantly striving to achieve while never feeling good enough. For others, it may appear as people-pleasing, perfectionism, self-criticism, feeling stuck in unhelpful patterns, or living according to expectations that no longer feel like their own. I see therapy as a space where we can explore these influences together, with curiosity rather than judgement, and begin to understand how they have shaped your experience.
When the old ways are no longer working.
Many people come to therapy because something no longer feels quite right. You may be functioning well on the surface while privately feeling lost, disconnected, overwhelmed, or unsure of who you are. You might find yourself repeating the same patterns in relationships, questioning your direction in life, or feeling that something important is missing. Although these experiences can be painful, I don't necessarily see them as signs that something is wrong with you. Sometimes they emerge when old ways of coping, relating, or understanding yourself are no longer serving you. They can be an invitation to pause and ask deeper questions about what matters to you, what kind of life you want to live, and who you are becoming. I am interested in the questions that sit beneath our struggles: questions about identity, meaning, belonging, freedom, connection, and how we find our place in the world. These are deeply human concerns, and they often become more visible during periods of transition, loss, uncertainty, or change.
So is it all talk and no action?
People sometimes worry that therapy is all reflection and no action. My experience is that understanding and change often go hand in hand. Developing a deeper understanding of yourself can be transformative in its own right. At the same time, insight often becomes most meaningful when it helps you make changes in your life, relationships, and day-to-day choices. Alongside exploring your experiences and patterns, I may draw on practical approaches to help develop a different relationship with difficult thoughts and feelings, supporting you to move towards a life that feels more aligned with your values. Together, we can explore both what has shaped you and what a different approach might help you move forwards.
What working with a therapist actually offers that self-improvement (and AI) doesn’t.
We live in a world full of self-help books, podcasts, online resources, and increasingly, AI. These can be really helpful. They can offer insight, language for our experiences, and practical strategies for coping. Many of us turn towards these because they feel safer than bringing our struggles to another person. We may worry that we are too much, too needy, too complicated, too broken, or that if others saw certain parts of us, we would be judged, rejected, or misunderstood.
For me, one of the most powerful aspects of therapy is that it takes place within a real relationship. Therapy creates a space where you don’t have to perform, impress, hide your vulnerabilities, or have everything figured out before you arrive. Together, we can explore your experiences at a pace that feels manageable, including the parts of yourself that may have felt difficult to share elsewhere.
Over time, therapy can become a place where new experiences become possible. You might find yourself expressing thoughts, feelings, wishes, fears, or needs that have long remained hidden. You may begin to discover that aspects of yourself you once believed would lead to rejection can instead be met with understanding, curiosity, and acceptance. For me, this is one of the things that makes therapy unique. It is not just about gaining insight into yourself. It is about experiencing yourself differently in the presence of another person, and carrying that experience into the rest of your life and relationships.
Frequently asked questions about my approach
What types of therapy do you offer?
I use a broadly relational approach, drawing especially from relational psychodynamic therapy, humanistic approaches and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). We’ll pay special attention to relational patterns shaping how you experience yourself and others and explore where they came from and what they are costing you. An existential approach means we also think about questions of meaning, identity, and freedom that tend to surface around difficult experiences. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers practical tools for developing a different relationship with difficult thoughts and feelings, grounded in your own values. All three work together rather than separately.
What’s it like to be in the room with you as my therapist?
You will find it most useful to work with me if you want someone who will be genuinely on your side while also being willing to challenge you. Someone who thinks carefully about what lies underneath your experience rather than simply reflecting it back.
This is not a space where you will be guided toward conclusions already reached but also not one where you will find me sitting back passively. Expect a warm but down-to-earth presence working alongside you, where difficult experiences can be explored in a way that opens toward something that feels genuinely yours.
What if you get it wrong and I feel like you don’t get me?
I probably will get it wrong sometimes, and you’re probably tired of people getting it wrong. The beauty of drawing from relational approaches to therapy is that part of the process is about exploring how it feels when someone does gets it wrong and doesn’t get you, and there are many ways for us to work with this. This isn’t always easy though and can in fact feel like one of the hardest parts of therapy. But know that this is something we use in the room to help create a space that feels safe and like it’s working for you, so you can move towards the changes you want to see in your life.
Why is the relationship between therapist and client so important in this work?
“It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found.”
D.W. Winnicott
Much of what brings people to therapy is a long history of not quite being found, of hiding the most real parts of themselves because the environment could not be trusted to receive them. I don’t believe change happens primarily through insight or technique; if that was the case then all the self-improvement books and podcasts would be all that you needed to change and heal. The most meaningful change happens through the experience of being genuinely known by another person, perhaps for the first time. This is why the therapeutic relationship is where the work actually happens.
But what if I do need a more practical approach alongside the deeper work?
You might experience symptoms of trauma, panic, anxiety, OCD or depression that need practical attention alongside the longer term work. Where this is the case, I draw on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help develop a different relationship with difficult thoughts, feelings, and urges. Rather than trying to eliminate or suppress these experiences, ACT works by changing how you relate to them, loosening their grip through acceptance and defusion rather than avoidance or control. Suitability for this kind of combined approach is something we would discuss at the consultation stage.
What if I have had therapy before and it did not help?
This is one of the most common things people say when they get in touch. Previous therapy not helping, or feeling insufficient, does not mean therapy can’t help you. It often means the approach or relationship was not well matched to what you were actually carrying. People who have felt frustrated by previous therapy, who felt it stayed too surface-level, was too passive pr active, moved too quickly, or did not reach what was actually going on, often find that longer term relational work offers something meaningfully different.
What if I find it hard to open up?
This is more common than people realise and is not a barrier to the work. Words can feel hard to reach or or exposing, and difficulty opening up is often directly connected to the kinds of experiences that have brought you to therapy in the first place.
Where this is the case, we can use creative and expressive approaches alongside talking, including image and drawing, as a way to bring what you want to express into the room or help you feel safe or calm. There is no expectation that you will arrive and say everything immediately and the pace is always yours to set.
Why does understanding the past matter if I am living in the present?
The past does not stay in the past. It lives in the patterns of how you relate to yourself and others, in the emotions that feel forbidden, and in the expectations you carry into every new relationship or experience. These patterns were usually formed for good reasons but over time they can start to shape the present in ways that feel more like fate than choice. Understanding where they came from does not mean being trapped by history. It means developing a new relationship with it so that it stops running the show invisibly.
What does it mean to work with meaning and identity rather than symptoms?
Symptoms are often the surface of something deeper. Feelings of emptiness, meaninglessness, languishing, and being different from others are usually signals from a self that has outgrown the life it is living. James Hollis writes about the provisional life; the identity we all build in response to others' expectations and early relational necessity, and how it eventually reaches a point of collapse. That collapse is often the first genuine invitation to find out who you actually are. Working with meaning and identity means taking that invitation seriously rather than treating it as a problem to be managed away from consciousness.