How I work
Therapy shaped around safety, capacity and deeper change
My work is relational, trauma-informed, body-aware and formulation-led.
I do not begin with a fixed technique or assume there is one explanation for what you are experiencing. We take time to understand what is happening, how it may have developed and what kind of help may be most appropriate.
Some people arrive with a clear focus. Others know only that something feels overwhelming, stuck or difficult to manage.
Both are valid starting points.
Therapy can begin with what is happening now: anxiety, shutdown, dissociation, relationship difficulties, exhaustion, self-criticism or the sense that something in you reacts before you can choose differently.
The aim is not simply to explain your patterns. It is to create the conditions for meaningful and lasting change.
Safety, pacing and shared formulation
Careful therapy begins with safety, pacing and consent.
This is particularly important when trauma, dissociation, shutdown, overwhelm or nervous-system strain are part of the picture. Moving quickly into painful material is not always the most helpful route.
Pacing is not avoidance.
Sometimes the first task is to understand what activates your system, make daily life more manageable and develop enough steadiness for deeper work to become possible.
We pay attention to:
what feels manageable;
what helps you remain present;
what supports regulation;
what can be approached directly;
what needs more preparation or time.
The work is guided by a shared formulation: a developing understanding of your history, present difficulties, relationships, triggers, protective responses, strengths and capacity.
Rather than fitting you into one predetermined method, we consider what kind of support is needed now. This might involve relational work, regulation, body-based therapy, trauma processing, neurodiversity-informed adaptation, neurofeedback or a combination of these.
A formulation provides direction without becoming rigid.
It helps us keep asking:
What are we working on? Why this focus now? What appears to be changing?
How the different elements of my approach fit together
Transactional Analysis is my primary psychotherapeutic modality. I practise it within a relational, attachment-aware and developmental framework.
Other approaches provide different ways of understanding and accessing experience. They are not separate treatment packages. They are integrated according to the shared formulation, the therapeutic relationship, your aims and your current capacity.
The diagram shows that Relational psychotherapy holds the overall process, with Transactional Analysis providing the central psychotherapeutic framework. Attachment and neurodiversity-informed perspectives shape formulation and adaptation, while Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Deep Brain Reorienting and EMDR-informed work offer different ways of attending to bodily, relational and trauma-related experience. The elements are selected and integrated according to the person, formulation, capacity and stage of therapy.
Click the image to enlarge it.
A flexible clinical framework
The diagram is not a fixed treatment pathway. Not everyone needs every element, and the order, emphasis and pace may change as therapy develops.
Attachment and developmental understanding
Attachment and developmental perspectives help us understand unmet relational needs, patterns of protection and adaptation, and how earlier relationships may shape present expectations.
They can illuminate difficulties involving trust, closeness, distance, dependency, shame, people-pleasing or self-reliance.
The question is not only, “What is wrong?” but also:
What might this response once have protected?
Transactional Analysis (TA)
Transactional Analysis provides the central psychotherapeutic framework for my work. My training placed particular emphasis on Relational Transactional Analysis, a contemporary development within TA that explores how early relational experiences and patterns continue to shape our present lives.
Relational TA also recognises the therapeutic relationship as an important part of the work: a collaborative space in which recurring patterns can be noticed, understood and, where possible, experienced differently.
TA may help us explore:
ego states;
life scripts and recurring patterns;
relationship dynamics;
internalised expectations;
present-moment experience;
autonomy, choice and responsibility.
Parts-informed dialogue may also be used when different aspects of the self hold conflicting emotions, needs or protective positions. This work remains grounded within the broader Transactional Analysis and relational framework.
Neurodiversity-informed adaptation
Neurodiversity-informed practice shapes how therapy is understood, paced and delivered.
This may involve adapting communication, allowing additional processing time, recognising sensory and attentional differences, and reducing unnecessary social or performance demands.
It also helps distinguish sensory overload, executive strain or environmental mismatch from attachment alarm or trauma patterning.
Neurodivergence is not itself an attachment injury. However, repeated misunderstanding, exclusion, masking or unmet accommodation needs may become painful and interact with earlier relational experience.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy brings careful attention to bodily experience.
We may notice changes in breathing, posture, movement, muscular bracing, collapse, autonomic activation or shutdown. We may also explore impulses to protect, withdraw, reach, move or push away.
Bodily responses are approached as meaningful information, rather than as reactions that must simply be controlled.
Deep Brain Reorienting
Deep Brain Reorienting, or DBR, is a carefully paced approach to trauma processing.
It works with the body’s rapid orienting response and the sequence through orienting tension, shock, pain, affect and reorientation.
DBR requires enough capacity to remain present to the physical and emotional experience that emerges. It is therefore approached gradually, with close attention to consent, activation, dissociation and pacing.
For some clients, preparatory work is needed to develop regulation, embodied presence and relational safety before deeper processing becomes appropriate.
EMDR-informed work
My practice is EMDR-informed, although EMDR is not the primary organising modality.
EMDR-derived understanding may contribute to preparation, resourcing, recognising links between triggers and memories, and supporting integration where appropriate.
It remains guided by the wider relational formulation rather than being applied mechanically.
The relationship and the body
The therapeutic relationship is central to how I work.
Many difficulties appear not only in symptoms or thoughts, but also in relationship: in trust, closeness, distance, shame, fear of criticism, withdrawal, dependency or feeling responsible for other people.
Therapy offers a steady relationship in which these patterns can be noticed, understood and gradually experienced differently.
This does not mean making the relationship artificially intense. It means attending carefully to what happens between us, particularly when familiar expectations or protective responses become active.
The relationship is part of the work, not simply the setting in which techniques are delivered.
Insight is important, but understanding alone is not always enough.
Some reactions occur before there is time to think. The body may brace, freeze, shut down, scan for danger or move into alarm even when the mind knows that the present situation is different.
A body-aware approach helps us notice these responses without forcing them to change. The aim is not permanent calm or perfect regulation, but greater flexibility, steadiness and choice.
Stabilisation and deeper work
Some people are ready to approach deeper emotional or trauma-related material relatively soon. Others first need support with regulation, sleep, daily functioning, relational safety or reducing overwhelm.
Both routes can be meaningful.
Stabilisation may include:
understanding triggers;
strengthening internal and external resources;
working with hyperarousal or shutdown;
supporting sleep and day-to-day regulation;
developing the ability to return to the present;
adapting environments that repeatedly exceed capacity.
Deeper work may involve trauma processing, attachment patterns, shame, grief, internal conflict or interrupted protective responses.
These are not necessarily separate stages. Therapy may move between understanding, stabilisation, processing, integration and review.
Deeper work is most helpful when there is enough capacity to remain connected to what emerges.
How the approaches may work together
The process is flexible, but it may include several overlapping movements.
1. Foundation and alliance
We begin developing a working relationship, a shared formulation and sufficient safety and trust.
2. Core relational and Transactional Analysis work
We explore present experience, ego states, scripts, recurring patterns and relationship dynamics.
3. Adaptation and support
The pace, communication and expectations of therapy are adjusted to your regulation capacity, neurotype and circumstances.
4. Body awareness and regulation
We develop greater awareness of bodily signals, autonomic responses and protective patterns.
5. Processing when ready
DBR or selected EMDR-informed methods may be used where deeper trauma processing is appropriate.
6. Integration into life
New experience is connected with meaning, relationship and everyday choices.
Therapy may support:
more choice;
a stronger sense of self;
clearer meaning;
improved self-regulation;
a wider window of tolerance;
greater capacity for adult life and intimacy;
a better quality of life.
These are possibilities, not promised outcomes. Change develops differently for each person.
What holds the approach together
Whatever methods are used, several principles remain consistent:
Formulation-led, not technique-led
The method follows the understanding of the person. The person is not fitted to the method.
Relational depth with embodied awareness
Thoughts, emotions, bodily experience and relationship are understood as interconnected.
Adaptation to capacity, history and neurotype
The work is paced around the person who is actually present, not an idealised treatment sequence.
More than symptom reduction
Reducing distress matters, but therapy may also support greater presence, agency, connection, freedom and integration.
Neurofeedback as an adjunct
Neurofeedback is not included in the modalities infographic because it can be provided separately as an adjunct to psychotherapy.
I am trained in infra-low frequency and frequency-based neurofeedback. Either may be considered selectively according to your presentation, aims and response to training.
Neurofeedback may be helpful when difficulties such as sleep disruption, overactivation, shutdown, emotional reactivity, attention difficulties, fatigue or brain fog make daily life or psychotherapy harder to sustain.
For some clients preparing for DBR, neurofeedback may help settle excessive nervous-system activation, increasing the capacity to remain present to physical and emotional experience.
It is not used automatically and does not replace psychotherapy, medical assessment or psychiatric care.
Sensors record brain activity and provide feedback; they do not electrically stimulate the brain.
Neurofeedback is offered in person in Shinfield, Reading, Berkshire.
How therapeutic change develops
Therapeutic change is usually gradual.
New possibilities may emerge alongside established protective responses. At first, they may feel unfamiliar or be available only in particular situations. Older patterns may still return, especially during stress.
Over time, new responses may become more stable and spontaneous through therapeutic experience, integration and opportunities to live differently outside therapy.
Therapy may reopen development, but growth does not occur inside the therapy room alone.
It develops through relationships, choices, activities and experiences in the wider world.
Progress may include:
recognising activation sooner;
recovering more readily from overwhelm;
distinguishing the present from earlier expectations;
expressing needs and limits more directly;
remaining connected to yourself in relationships;
having greater freedom to pause and choose;
becoming more able to build a life that feels genuinely your own.
The return of an older response does not necessarily mean that change has been lost. Progress may be reflected in the increasing availability of alternatives and the ability to recover when familiar patterns return.
How therapy begins
The first step is usually a free 20-minute consultation.
This gives us an opportunity to talk briefly about what brings you to therapy, what you hope may change and whether my way of working may be suitable.
You do not need to know which kind of therapy you need.
If we decide to begin, the early sessions help us understand what is troubling you, what may be contributing to it and what form of support may be most appropriate.
This way of working may suit you if
This approach may be helpful if:
you understand your difficulties but continue to feel stuck;
your body reacts even when your mind understands;
anxiety, shutdown, overwhelm or dissociation affect daily life;
relationship patterns continue to repeat;
previous therapy did not fully reach the deeper pattern;
neurodivergence, masking or sensory overload need to be understood alongside relational experience;
you are looking for therapy that is careful, relational and paced;
you want depth rather than advice alone.
It may not provide the right level of support if you are in an acute crisis, need emergency intervention or require intensive support beyond an outpatient psychotherapy practice.
Practical information
Sessions are available:
in person in Shinfield, Reading, Berkshire;
online;
by telephone where appropriate.
I work with adults, couples and therapists seeking clinical supervision.
If this feels like the right kind of work
You do not need to have everything clear before making contact.
A free 20-minute consultation gives us an opportunity to consider what feels difficult, what you are looking for and whether this way of working may be appropriate.
There is no pressure to continue.