Areas of Interest

Addiction

Modern life presents countless potential addictions: pornography, alcohol, cannabis, drugs, food, gambling, sugar and carbs, gaming, and social media. Breaking free from addiction requires a comprehensive approach addressing three essential areas.

First, we'll work together to find a realistic pathway to stopping the addictive behaviour. Second, we'll develop healthy ways to process and express emotions rather than suppressing them. Third, we'll explore the underlying traumas or life difficulties that created the environment where these addictions took root.

In my experience, sustainable recovery requires addressing all three areas simultaneously—focusing on just one rarely leads to lasting change.

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Anxiety

My goal is to help you understand your anxiety symptoms and identify their root causes. Rather than simply managing anxiety, I aim to help you find a path to living anxiety-free.

We'll focus on two key areas: first, understanding what anxiety means for you personally and identifying when and where it affects you most. Second, we'll work to undo the thought patterns and behaviours that perpetuate anxiety in your daily life.

While coping strategies can be helpful, my ultimate aim is to address the underlying causes so you can experience genuine freedom from anxiety.

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Depression

Depression feels like living under a constant, never-ending grey sky—a complete loss of direction with no clear sense of where you're going or how you arrived in this place. This makes starting therapy incredibly difficult. It makes getting out of bed incredibly difficult, let alone finding the energy to speak with a therapist, explain your story, and answer the challenging question: "What do you want from therapy?"

With over 15 years of experience as a therapist, I understand these difficulties and deeply respect the mental and physical effort it takes to explore your situation. That's why I make these first sessions as comfortable and welcoming as possible, creating space for you to share your story and work together to find a direction for the beginning of our journey.

Starting therapy is often the best place to begin untangling this sense of directionlessness. We do this by building a trusting relationship and exploring together, one step at a time.

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Neurodiversity - ADHD, ASD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, and More

I must declare a personal interest in this area—I'm dyslexic myself. I also work with many neurodiverse clients, both currently and throughout my career, and my supervisor is dyspraxic and a specialist in this field.

The term "neurodiversity" itself presents a challenge, as it assumes a "normally" developed human brain, with everyone else categorized as deviating from that norm. In reality, a classroom doesn't contain "normal" and "dyslexic" children—it contains a rich array of different strengths and challenges.

In therapy, when exploring neurodiversity, our first priority is building a clear picture of what your particular condition means for you. What are the areas where you flourish? What are the areas where you struggle? No two people with ADHD will ever have identical experiences, so we need to understand your unique profile.

It's important to recognize that there will always be areas within ourselves that we must adapt to, as well as areas where we can make meaningful progress. Using my dyslexia as an example: I can work on improving my reading and writing skills, but reading will never be effortless for me—and that's okay.

Relationship Issues

Relationships are complex, constantly evolving entities. We exist within a network of relationships, and each individual and relationship continues developing at a rapid pace. It's no wonder many of us find ourselves in relationships that don't feel fulfilling for one or both people involved.

Whether you're working through a specific problem, navigating your roles as parents, or determining what direction your relationship should take next, couples therapy provides the perfect space to understand where you are now and explore what comes next.

Self-Esteem

When I started my counselling diploma course, I struggled with very low self-esteem. I read numerous books on the subject, but none seemed to help. It was my own therapy that changed everything—I began to understand the origins of my self-esteem issues and the daily behaviours that kept me stuck.

The best analogy I've found for self-esteem is a garden. We can't force plants, grass, and flowers to grow, but we can create the conditions that allow everything in the garden to flourish. That's what I believe therapy accomplishes. Together, we need to understand both the root causes and the daily behaviours affecting your self-worth.

Stress

Stress involves several interconnected elements: our expectations of ourselves, others' expectations of us, our self-care practices, and our ability to communicate effectively about these pressures. This may seem complex—and it is when we try to solve it alone—but the therapy space provides the perfect environment to unpack all of this and find a way through.

An engineering client once told me, "The beginning of solutions is metaphorically or literally dumping all the data on the table. Through the process of organizing that data, we discover the true nature of the problem we're trying to solve."

Students - From Age 14 Upwards

I work with secondary school pupils and university/college students. My first employed position as a counsellor was at the University of Kent, where I worked in the wellbeing department for five years. Since then, I've supervised therapists at the University of the West of England (UWE) and currently supervise therapists working for the University of Bristol.

University presents unique challenges. Students must cope with an intensely condensed academic year from September/October to Easter, creating pressure points with assignments and exams. They need to build social networks and secure living arrangements for the following year as quickly as possible. They must independently identify and access support for any challenges they may have—neurodiversity, disabilities, dyslexia, and more. While abundant help exists, nothing is automatically offered.

Beyond daily tasks like cooking, cleaning, and laundry, students face the full academic workload. Trauma, grief, family changes, or major life discoveries can emerge at these critical developmental stages.

Working with students at secondary school, college, or university level is a tremendous honour. Please reach out to discuss whether my approach might work for you or your son or daughter.

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can present as a complex set of symptoms to work through. It often seems to develop from nowhere yet feels like it's been present forever. The mere idea of change can feel overwhelming and impossible to contemplate.

I've worked with many clients experiencing OCD, both teenagers and adults. Progress requires patience, but with time, compassion, and the development of robust methods for managing emotions and life's challenges, meaningful change is absolutely possible.