How can I help?
Everyone’s story is unique, and no two people experience life’s challenges in the same way. Below are some of the issues I commonly work with.
If what you’re experiencing isn’t listed, please don’t let that put you off getting in touch. Therapy isn’t about fitting into a category-it’s about understanding you.
Anxiety
Anxiety can show up as constant worry, a racing mind, or a physical sense of unease that doesn’t seem to switch off. You may find yourself overthinking conversations, expecting the worst, avoiding certain situations, or feeling as though you’re always on high alert. It can affect your sleep, your relationships, your confidence, and your ability to enjoy everyday life.
For some people, anxiety has an obvious trigger. For others, it seems to appear without warning. Whatever your experience, anxiety often develops for understandable reasons. Rather than seeing it as something to get rid of, I’m interested in understanding what may be driving your anxiety and the purpose it has come to serve in your life.
Together, we’ll explore the experiences, beliefs and patterns that may be keeping anxiety going, while also finding practical ways to help you feel calmer and more grounded. Where it feels appropriate, I may draw on mindfulness to help you notice anxious thoughts and physical sensations with greater awareness, creating space to respond differently rather than becoming caught in cycles of worry.
My aim is not simply to reduce anxiety, but to help you feel more confident in yourself, better able to manage life’s uncertainties, and freer to live the life you want.
Depression
Depression is more than simply feeling sad. It can leave you feeling exhausted, disconnected, hopeless, or as though you’ve lost sight of the person you once were. Things that once felt manageable may now seem overwhelming, and it can become difficult to find enjoyment or meaning in everyday life.
Sometimes depression follows a significant life event such as a loss, relationship breakdown or trauma. At other times, it seems to develop gradually, making it hard to recognise just how much you’re struggling. Whatever your experience, depression can leave you feeling isolated and stuck, but it doesn’t have to define you.
Together, we will gently explore your experiences and make sense of how depression has become a part of your life, helping you develop a deeper understanding of yourself and what you need moving forwards.
I will provide a space to explore your thoughts and emotions without judgement. As your understanding grows, so too can your self-compassion, helping you reconnect with yourself and find a way forward that feels right for you.
Abuse
Experiencing abuse can affect every part of your life. Whether it happened recently or many years ago, the impact can remain long after the events themselves have ended. You may struggle with anxiety, low self-worth, trusting others, setting boundaries, or understanding why certain situations continue to affect you.
Abuse can take many forms, including emotional, psychological, physical, sexual or financial abuse. Sometimes it’s obvious that what happened was abusive. At other times, people spend years questioning their own experiences, wondering whether they are overreacting or whether it was 'really that bad.' Whatever your experience, your feelings matter.
Having worked with survivors of rape and sexual assault, I understand that talking about abuse can feel frightening and deeply vulnerable. Therapy isn’t about expecting you to tell your story before you’re ready. We’ll work at a pace that feels safe for you, creating the trust and stability needed before exploring experiences that may still feel painful or overwhelming.
My role is to provide a compassionate, non-judgemental space where you can begin to make sense of what you’ve been through, reconnect with your own voice, and move towards a greater sense of safety, self-understanding and choice.
Anger
Anger is often misunderstood. Many of us grow up believing it’s something to suppress, avoid or feel ashamed of. Yet anger is a natural human emotion. Like all emotions, it has a purpose. It can alert us when something doesn’t feel right, when our boundaries have been crossed, or when an important need has gone unmet.
For some people, anger feels overwhelming and difficult to control. For others, it rarely shows itself at all. Instead, it may be turned inwards, contributing to anxiety, low mood, self-criticism or feelings of resentment. However it presents itself, anger is often connected to experiences that deserve understanding rather than judgement.
In therapy, we’ll take time to explore what your anger might be communicating, the situations that trigger it, and the patterns that have developed over time. As your understanding grows, you’ll have greater choice in how you respond, helping you express yourself in ways that feel healthier, more confident and more in keeping with the person you want to be.
Rather than trying to get rid of anger, my aim is to help you develop a different relationship with it, allowing it to become a source of information rather than something that controls you.
