What may bring you here

You may be here because something feels persistently difficult: anxiety that does not settle, emotional overwhelm, shutdown, disconnection, exhaustion, or relationship patterns that keep repeating even when part of you understands them.

You might recognise some of these experiences:

• you understand your patterns, but still find yourself pulled into anxiety, shutdown, or hypervigilance

• you feel on edge, overwhelmed, or unable to settle

• relationship patterns repeat, even when you try to do things differently

• sleep is poor, exhaustion is common, or your system rarely seems to rest

• you feel disconnected from yourself, your emotions, or other people

• part of you knows what is happening, but it still does not shift

Sometimes these difficulties are linked to stress, attachment wounds, chronic overwhelm, or trauma. Sometimes they show up in quieter ways: chronic tension, people-pleasing, emotional shutdown, dissociation, hyper-independence, or a body that stays organised around protection.

These responses are not signs of weakness. They are often ways the mind and body learned to cope.

Therapy offers a space to understand those patterns without forcing change too quickly.

Over time, that can mean more room to think, to feel, to choose, and to relate differently.

For a fuller overview of the kinds of difficulties this work may help with, see Common symptoms & experiences ›

Considering therapy?

If some of this resonates, you are welcome to book a free 20-minute consultation.

We can talk about what is troubling you and whether this way of working feels like a good fit.

No pressure.

How I work

Often, the difficulty is not simply a lack of insight. Many people already understand a great deal about why they feel as they do. The harder part is that the pattern still takes over: in relationships, under stress, or in the body.

My work is grounded in relational psychotherapy. That means the therapeutic relationship matters. Together, we make sense of your experience, while also paying attention to what happens emotionally, physically, and relationally as we do so.

I do not tend to rush toward the deepest material. Often the first task is helping life feel less overwhelming in the present, so that deeper work becomes possible without flooding, collapse, or disconnection.

Where helpful, therapy may include:

• Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) — for shock and threat responses that can sit underneath symptoms

• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy — to work with how experience may be held in the body

• Parts work and ego-state-informed work — to make sense of protective inner patterns

• EMDR — in some cases, as part of trauma processing

These approaches are not used mechanically or as stand-alone techniques. They are integrated within one therapeutic process and used where they genuinely fit.

This can be especially helpful when anxiety, shutdown, relationship strain, emotional overwhelm, or old survival patterns keep taking over.

Over time, the aim is not simply symptom management, but greater steadiness, more choice, and a stronger sense of living rather than merely getting through.

Individual Psychotherapy ›

Trauma, the body, and the nervous system

Trauma and chronic stress can leave the body acting as though danger is still present, long after the original situation has passed. This can affect sleep, tension, concentration, emotional reactivity, shutdown, and the sense of safety in yourself or with other people.

Sometimes the nervous system remains organised around vigilance, protection, or collapse. When that happens, insight on its own may not be enough.

Approaches such as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and Deep Brain Reorienting can help us work with these patterns, so that the system does not have to keep responding as though threat were still current.

This can affect not only sleep, tension, and emotional regulation, but also trust, closeness, conflict, and receiving care.

Not everyone I work with would use the word trauma. Even so, this kind of work can still be relevant.

Trauma ›

ILF neurofeedback in Reading

For some clients, psychotherapy is helped by ILF neurofeedback, a non-invasive form of brain training that supports the brain’s capacity for self-regulation.

It can be useful when the system is very reactive, easily overwhelmed, unable to settle, or persistently disrupted in sleep or rest.

It is not something I recommend automatically. We would look at whether it fits your needs and the overall direction of the work, or whether psychotherapy on its own is the better place to begin.

ILF neurofeedback is not a separate psychotherapy. It is a supportive tool that can sometimes make reflection and therapeutic work more accessible.

Sessions are offered in person in Shinfield, Reading.

ILF neurofeedback ›

Other ways of working

Most people begin with individual psychotherapy. Other formats can be considered where they make more sense. I also offer trauma-informed work with couples, groups, and therapists or practitioners in clinical supervision.

Relationship work

Helping partners understand what happens between them under stress, conflict, distance, or repeated misunderstanding, and develop different ways of responding with greater awareness and care.

This work includes Couple Psychotherapy and Group Psychotherapy.

Relationship work ›

Clinical supervision

For therapists and practitioners who want a thoughtful, clinically grounded space to think about trauma, relational process, and complex clinical work.

Clinical supervision ›

Practicalities

Here are the basics.

• Individuals aged 16+

• Couples or group work by arrangement

• In person for individuals and couples in Shinfield, Reading, Berkshire

• Online for individuals, couples, and groups via Zoom

• Short-, medium-, and long-term work available

If you are wondering whether this might be the right fit, the consultation gives us a chance to talk about your needs and whether this way of working seems likely to help.

Book a free 20-minute consultation ›