Psychotherapy and Counselling
When you are feeling lost, alone, frightened or quite stuck, it can be helpful to hear yourself in the company of a psychotherapist or counsellor - someone who can empathise and help you attune to your inner world with clarity and compassion.
You might come to therapy with me if:
- You are feeling lost, stuck, or unsure of direction
- You experience anxiety, sadness, grief, or emotional overwhelm
- You want to understand yourself more deeply, rather than just manage symptoms
- You notice patterns in your relationships or inner world that you would like to explore
- You are going through a transition, or questioning meaning in your life
- You are curious about your inner world, and open to a more reflective, awareness-based way of working
- You are seeking a space where you can slow down, be met, and explore your experience at depth
How I work
I work weekly with clients, trusting that what needs to emerge in the space will emerge.
The invitation is to sit with what is arising. Questions such as “what is happening now?” or “can I deepen into this?” can help you turn inwards and explore your experience more fully.
Often, what comes into the space carries emotional charge because it is already alive in your life. We go at your pace, and I draw on compassion-based approaches to support a shift from reactivity towards a more responsive and grounded way of being.
This work unfolds relationally. Together, we pay attention not only to what you bring, but also to what is happening between us in the room. Through this, aspects of your experience can be explored, understood, and gradually integrated.
Because this is a contemplative talking therapy, there are no fixed strategies or pre-determined plans. Instead, there is a trust in what wants to be seen, named, and worked through - and an openness to the unfolding process.
As one of my mindfulness teachers said: “the seeing is the doing.”
Developing awareness can gently loosen the hold of old patterns and beliefs, allowing something new to emerge.
My approach
My work is grounded in Core Process psychotherapy - a mindfulness-based approach that brings together Buddhist perspectives on awareness with Western psychodynamic understanding.
This means we can explore both your present-moment experience and the deeper patterns that may have been shaped through earlier relationships, often outside of conscious awareness.
I also draw from humanistic and existential counselling, which supports meaning-making, choice, and the willingness to turn towards difficult experience with curiosity rather than avoidance.
Alongside this, my trauma-informed training supports a paced and attuned approach. We work with developing awareness of the difference between past and present experience, helping you feel more resourced, more stable, and less overwhelmed by what arises.
How this can help
Rather than trying to “fix” yourself, this work invites a different relationship with your experience.
You might begin to notice:
- greater awareness of your thoughts, emotions, and bodily responses
- a shift from being caught in patterns to being able to observe them
- more compassion towards yourself and your internal world
- an increased sense of choice in how you respond to life
We may explore how you relate to different aspects of yourself - your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and patterns of perception - and how these come together to shape your experience.
Through this, there is the possibility of loosening fixed identities, and connecting with a wider, more spacious sense of self.
Ways of working
I draw on a range of contemplative and therapeutic perspectives, including:
- Mindfulness and awareness practices
Supporting you to develop a witnessing capacity - being both in your experience and aware of it - so that you can process and integrate what arises. - Compassion-based approaches
Helping you relate to yourself with kindness rather than judgment, especially in areas of difficulty or vulnerability. - Relational and psychodynamic understanding
Exploring patterns that may have developed in earlier relationships, and how these show up in your current life. - Trauma-informed awareness
Supporting you to stay within your window of tolerance, and to differentiate between past experiences and present-moment reality. - Existential exploration
Creating space to engage with questions of meaning, choice, uncertainty, and the realities of being human.
A note on depth
This way of working is both grounded and open.
It allows space for complexity, for not knowing, and for the gradual unfolding of your experience over time. At the same time, it remains rooted in your lived reality - your relationships, your body, your history, and your present life.
The intention is not to become someone different, but to come into a more aware, compassionate, and integrated relationship with who you already are.
Gender, sexuality and identity
I am informed in working with gender and sexual diversity through both my own lived experience as a gay man, and through ongoing training and participation in communities such as:
- Pink Therapy
- Loving Men+
- Queer Spirit Festival
- Gaia House LGBTQ+ retreats
I aim to offer a space where all aspects of identity can be explored with openness, respect, and sensitivity.
