A gentle starting point

You may understand your difficulties very well — and still find your body reacting as if safety cannot quite be felt yet.

You might recognise some of these experiences:

• understanding your patterns, yet still finding yourself caught in anxiety, shutdown, or hypervigilance

• feeling overwhelmed, on alert, or unable to settle

• repeating relationship patterns that are difficult to shift

• struggling with poor sleep, exhaustion, or a system that rarely rests

• feeling disconnected from yourself, your emotions, or other people

• feeling stuck, even when part of you understands why

Sometimes trauma shows up in quieter ways — through chronic tension, people-pleasing, emotional shutdown, dissociation, hyper-independence, or a body that remains organised around protection even when part of you knows the danger has passed.

These responses are not signs of weakness. They are often the mind and body’s way of trying to protect you.

Therapy can offer a space where these patterns are understood carefully, without judgment or pressure, and allowed to soften over time.

Common symptoms and experiences ›

Considering therapy?

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

We can think together about what you are looking for, answer any questions you may have, and get a sense of whether this way of working feels like a good fit.

No pressure.

Many people come to therapy already understanding a great deal about what has happened to them. They may know their history well, recognise familiar patterns, and still find that, in the moment, the same reactions take over.

This is often because the difficulty is not only about insight. It may also be held in emotional expectations, relational patterns, and the nervous system’s learned responses.

My work is grounded in relational psychotherapy. Together, we make sense of your experience carefully, while also paying attention to what helps greater safety and stability become possible over time.

Where helpful, therapy may include:

• Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) — working carefully with shock and threat responses

• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy — exploring how experience may be held in the body

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

• EMDR — where appropriate for trauma processing

These approaches are not used mechanically or as isolated techniques. They are integrated within one relational therapeutic process, shaped around what feels most helpful and manageable for you.

The table below offers a simple overview of the different aspects of experience they may help address.

Work with me ›

Trauma, the body, and the nervous system

Trauma and chronic stress can affect how the nervous system regulates itself, shaping sleep, tension, concentration, emotional responses, and the sense of safety in the body.

Sometimes the system continues to react as if danger is present long after the original threat has passed. Approaches such as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and Deep Brain Reorienting can help us work carefully with these patterns so that greater steadiness and flexibility can develop over time.

Trauma ›

ILF neurofeedback in Reading

In-person support for nervous system regulation

For some clients, psychotherapy can be supported by ILF neurofeedback, a gentle, non-invasive form of brain training that helps the brain improve its own self-regulation.

This can be particularly helpful when the system remains highly reactive, easily overwhelmed, or unable to settle into sleep or rest.

ILF neurofeedback is not a separate psychotherapy. It is a supportive tool that may help create more stability in the nervous system, making reflection, emotional regulation, and therapeutic work more accessible.

Sessions are offered in person in Shinfield, near Reading.

ILF neurofeedback ›

Common reasons people get in touch

Some of the difficulties this work may help with include:

• trauma and developmental trauma

• anxiety, chronic stress, and hypervigilance

• shutdown, dissociation, and other protective responses

• relationship and attachment difficulties

• persistent emotional patterns that feel hard to shift

• nervous system dysregulation

Explore further:

• Work with me ›

• Trauma ›

• Common symptoms and experiences ›

• Words that accompany my work ›

Other ways of working

Alongside individual psychotherapy, I also offer trauma-informed work with couples, groups, and practitioners in supervision.

• Relationship work ›

  Supporting partners to understand patterns that emerge in relationship and to develop new ways of relating

• Group psychotherapy ›

  Providing a space where relational patterns can be explored and understood within a supportive group environment

• Clinical supervision ›

  For therapists and practitioners working with trauma and relational processes.

Practicalities

Here are the basics — and if you are unsure, we can talk them through in the consultation.

• 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’re wondering whether this feels like the right fit, you’re welcome to get in touch or book a free 20-minute consultation.