Individual Psychotherapy & EMDR for Adults

50 minutes, once a week, for you to work things through without judgement or pressure.

This might be you

You're pretty capable, maybe a bit of a coper. You hold things together at work, in relationships, in life generally. But underneath that, something feels off in ways you can't quite name.

Maybe you have strong reactions to things that seem minor: a comment that shouldn't sting, a situation that sends you into overdrive. You might find yourself scanning for problems even when everything's fine, braced for something to go wrong — unable to just be in the moment and enjoy it. Relationships feel harder than they should. You give a lot, but your own needs often go unnoticed (perhaps even by you?)

You might have a sense that this didn't come from nowhere, that some of these patterns have been with you for a while. Sometimes there's an obvious thing you can point to; sometimes it's harder to name.

Usually, your responses - the adaptive patterns that formed - were reasonable responses to an unreasonable situation, whether that situation is recent or repeated, long ago. The thing is, those responses aren't helping so much now.

Individual therapy can help you sort through why you feel the way you do, with a view to moving forward in a way that works better for you.

I commonly work with:

Relationship difficulties. Repeating difficult patterns and dynamics: giving too much; taking responsibility for other people's feelings; people-pleasing; struggling to set boundaries. This might show up in romantic relationships, friendships, family or work. You might also be wondering whether your attachment style, for example avoidant or anxious, is playing a part in this.

Anxiety. Generalised worry, social anxiety, health anxiety, and the low-level hum of unease that's hard to shake.

Phobias and specific fears. Travel (fear of flying, trains, boats, buses), death (thanatophobia), emetophobia, or other specific fears. If a particular fear is limiting your life, EMDR is especially effective.

Trauma, PTSD and complex PTSD. PTSD can follow a single event or period of acute threat. Complex PTSD typically develops in response to prolonged or repeated difficult experiences, often in childhood: neglect, emotional unavailability, a hard home environment. It tends to show up as patterns and reactions rather than flashbacks. Don't worry if you're not sure this is you; we can explore that together.

Perfectionism and high-achieving patterns. High standards that have become a pressure you can't escape. Doing more, proving more, and still not feeling like enough.

Burnout. When the coping strategies that got you this far are no longer working quite so well, and you feel a little close to the edge. Or maybe you've already toppled over it.

Feeling stuck. A sense that something is holding you back, mentally or emotionally, even if you can't quite put your finger on what.

How I work

The way I work is collaborative: you are the expert on you, I have training which may help. Together, we are curious, trying to work out what has happened, and how it is affecting you now.

We start by getting a proper picture of your goals: what would a good outcome look like for you? (Don't panic if you don't know this; we can work it out.) We then look at what has brought you to therapy - the landscape of your life: your history; what are the things that are a problem now. That takes a few sessions, and informs how we'll work together. This stage is also important because the evidence shows that we need to build a relationship for therapy to be effective and feel safe for you.

From there, I'll suggest how I think we could work, and see what you think. I am not doing therapy to you; it's co-created.

In practice, how we work might vary depending on you and what's coming up:

Exploring the presenting past: how early relationships and key experiences shape the way we connect with people and respond to life now, how the past echoes today, and what that tells us about how to move forward.
Psychoeducation and taking practical steps: around what anxiety is and how to manage it; what healthy boundaries are and look like; understanding feelings and what they're telling us; emotional regulation; assertive behaviour; taking practical steps to improve self-esteem.
EMDR to process the difficult experiences that drive the patterns. This is often really helpful when other types of therapy haven't quite hit the spot, or where you're grappling with a phobia.

A note on EMDR

Many people get in touch with me specifically for EMDR, and it's a significant part of how I work. Where it's relevant, or where you know that's the approach you want to take, we'll do that. I have a separate page that explains more about what it involves.

EMDR is certainly faster than other types of therapy in my opinion, but it's not like the memory gadget in Men in Black; it is not going to get rid of your 'stuff' in one session. It is usually faster for single-event trauma (e.g. a car crash) and takes longer for longer-term experiences; usually months rather than weeks. I'm a huge fan of the approach, but I don't want to oversell its rapidity.

How long we work together

This will depend on what you bring and what you want to change. Some people come for a focused piece of work over a few months. Others stay for a year or more. I'll always work to your timeframe; we'll set realistic goals for our time together.