Specialising in anxiety disorders and relationship therapy
Anxiety Disorders and Panic
I have a special interest in anxiety disorders, and especially in how strongly anxiety is felt in the body. People often come to me convinced that something is physically wrong. They describe heart symptoms, breathlessness, tightness in the chest, dizziness, headaches, digestive issues, chronic pain or a strange sense of unreality. These sensations are real and my first response is always to support a full medical check. But very often, they come from a nervous system that has become sensitised and keeps sounding the alarm when there is no danger. With panic disorder, the fear can turn into fear of the sensations themselves. One flutter in the chest or one wave of light-headedness is enough to set off the next attack, and life starts to shrink around avoiding them. My work brings mind and body together. We get to know what your nervous system is doing and why. We use somatic and hypnotherapeutic approaches to help your body find its way back to steadiness, and we gently loosen the habits of checking, bracing and avoidance that keep the cycle going.
I owe a great deal to the work of Dr Claire Weekes, an Australian GP whose book Self Help for Your Nerves was published in the 1960s. It is still one of the most compassionate and practical guides to anxiety I know. Her approach rests on four simple principles: facing the sensations rather than running from them, accepting them rather than fighting, floating through them rather than tensing against them, and letting time pass without demanding that you feel better immediately. Her method can sound almost too simple. Yet many people find real freedom in it when they finally stop battling their own nervous system. Her ideas run through much of my anxiety work, alongside more recent approaches like ACT, which share her central insight that the struggle against anxiety is often what keeps it alive.
Relationship and Couples Therapy
Relationship challenges can feel impossible. Often we get stuck in the same argument, just with a different subject each time. One of you raises something, the other goes quiet or gets defensive, and you both end up feeling alone. Coping strategies that work to avoid immediate pain, become long term obstacles to authentic and vulnerable connection and ultimately all the good things we hope for in our closest relationships.
My couples work draws on Relational Life Therapy, ACT and schema therapy to help you understand and change that loop. Schema therapy helps us find the older wounds underneath the conflict, such as a fear of abandonment, a sense of never being good enough, or a deep expectation of being controlled. We look at how your two sets of wounds can set each other off and then the self defeating ways in which you cope inadvertently continue the spiral. Relational Life Therapy brings honesty and directness. I'll name the patterns I see between you, and help each of you take responsibility for your own part without collapsing into shame or blame. ACT gives you both a way to make room for the hurt, fear and frustration that come up, so they no longer drive the conversation, and to turn back towards what you each value in the relationship. The aim isn't to declare a winner. It's to learn how to repair after a rupture, ask for what you need, and find connection again.
REBT (Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy)
REBT is one of the original forms of CBT, developed by Albert Ellis in the 1950s. It starts from a simple idea: it isn't only what happens to us that upsets us, but the beliefs we hold about it. Many of these beliefs show up as rigid "musts" and "shoulds", such as I must not fail or they should have known better. Together we slow down the moment things go wrong, noticing the event, the thought that follows and the feeling it leaves behind. Then we test those beliefs for fairness and usefulness. REBT is practical and direct, and you'll often leave a session with something specific to try during the week.
ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
ACT doesn't ask you to argue with every anxious or painful thought. It helps you change your relationship with those thoughts so they have less grip on you. A worry can be noticed, named and carried along, rather than obeyed. Alongside this, we spend time on what genuinely matters to you, such as the kind of parent, partner or friend you want to be. That clarity becomes a compass for small, concrete steps. ACT is especially helpful when you've spent a long time trying to make difficult feelings go away and found that the fight itself has become exhausting.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing)
Some experiences don't settle into the past the way they should. A smell, a tone of voice or a particular time of year can bring them rushing back as if they were happening now. EMDR is a structured therapy that helps the brain reprocess these memories so they feel more distant and less charged. While you briefly bring a memory to mind, we use bilateral stimulation, usually side-to-side eye movements, taps or tones. It is recommended by NICE for post-traumatic stress, and it can also help with other distressing memories. We always build a sense of safety and resourcing first, and we go at a pace that feels manageable for you.
Relational Life Therapy
Relational Life Therapy was developed by Terry Real for couples, and it is refreshingly honest. Rather than staying neutral, I'll gently but clearly name the patterns I see between you, including who withdraws, who pursues, and where old family habits are playing out in your kitchen today. RLT looks at how each of you learned to protect yourself growing up, and at how those strategies now get in the way of closeness. The work is about moving from blame and stalemate towards repair. That means learning to speak up for what you need, and to listen without bracing for attack. It can also be used in individual work, for anyone wanting to understand their part in their relationships.
Clinical Hypnotherapy
Hypnosis is a natural, focused state, a bit like being absorbed in a good book or driving a familiar road on autopilot. You stay aware and in control throughout. In this relaxed, attentive state, the mind is often more open to new ways of seeing and responding. In clinical hypnotherapy I use this state alongside talking therapy to work with anxiety, unhelpful habits, sleep, confidence and the body's stress responses. Sessions are collaborative. We agree on the focus beforehand and talk afterwards about what came up. Where it's useful, I can also give you recordings, so you can keep practising self-hypnosis at home.