Eating disorders are often spoken about through food, weight, or appearance, but in therapy, it rarely stays at that surface level for very long. Very quickly, we begin to see that the relationship with food has usually become tied into something much wider. Control, shame, self criticism, emotional overwhelm, fear of being seen, fear of losing oneself, sometimes even a way of surviving experiences that once felt unmanageable.

So I do not approach eating disorders as simply a set of behaviours that need correcting. What I am usually trying to understand first is what the eating disorder has come to represent or protect within that person’s life.

For some people, the struggle feels harsh and relentless, with food, body image, and self worth becoming intertwined to the point where everyday life starts shrinking around them. For others, it can look quieter from the outside, while internally there is constant exhaustion, guilt, secrecy, or a feeling of never being “good enough”.

My approach involves building a fuller picture of the person’s emotional world alongside the eating difficulties themselves. This includes looking at patterns in relationships, identity, perfectionism, emotional regulation, trauma, self image, and the pressures the person has learned to carry over time.

Depending on the person’s needs, therapy may draw from CBT-E, DBT, psychodynamic thinking, and other evidence based approaches. But I try not to force people into a rigid treatment process. Therapy works best when the work feels connected to the person’s actual experience, rather than becoming another set of rules they feel they are failing at.

Where needed, I also work closely with GPs, dietitians, psychiatrists, and family members so that both the psychological and physical aspects of recovery are supported together.

Recovery is rarely about achieving a perfect relationship with food. More often, it involves helping a person build a different relationship with themselves, one where eating no longer has to carry the weight of everything that could not previously be spoken, processed, or felt.

Trauma is often spoken about as though it belongs entirely in the past, but for many people, the experience continues long after the original events are over. Sometimes in obvious ways, through fear, panic, nightmares, or feeling constantly on edge. Other times in more subtle ways that become part of everyday life. Difficulty trusting people, feeling emotionally disconnected, becoming highly self critical, struggling to feel safe even in calm situations, or carrying a persistent sense that something is wrong without fully knowing why.

And often, people minimise their own experiences because they have learned to compare their pain against what they believe trauma is supposed to look like.

So my approach to trauma work is not simply about reducing symptoms or pushing people to revisit painful memories before they are ready. What I am usually more interested in first is how the person’s nervous system, relationships, sense of self, and emotional world have been shaped over time in response to what they have lived through.

Trauma can affect how a person experiences closeness, conflict, vulnerability, identity, control, and even their ability to rest. Sometimes the adaptations that once helped somebody survive begin to create difficulties later in life, even when the original danger is no longer present.

In therapy, we work carefully and collaboratively to build a fuller picture of these patterns. Depending on the person’s needs, this may involve trauma focused approaches alongside psychodynamic thinking, helping us make sense of the links between past experiences, emotional responses, and present day difficulties.

But trauma work is often not linear. At times, the process involves slowing things down rather than forcing progress. Creating enough emotional safety for the person to stay connected to themselves while exploring experiences that may previously have felt unbearable, confusing, or emotionally fragmented.

Often, trauma also carries shame, grief, anger, numbness, or a feeling of having lost parts of themselves along the way. In our sessions, I aim to create a therapeutic space where those experiences no longer have to remain hidden or carried alone.

Moving on from trauma is the ultimate goal, but throughout the sessions the focus will likely be put elsewhere. Our session will involve helping you regain a stronger sense of safety, connection, and continuity within yourself, where life no longer feels organised entirely around surviving what has already happened.

ADHD is often spoken about in terms of attention or concentration, but for many people, the experience goes beyond that. Over time, it can begin to shape the way a person sees themselves. Constantly feeling behind, struggling to hold onto routines, starting things with intensity and then losing momentum, or feeling frustrated by the gap between what they know they are capable of and what they can consistently carry through.

For some people, the difficulties are obvious and disruptive. For others, they become hidden underneath overworking, perfectionism, humour, people pleasing, or exhaustion. Especially in adulthood, many people arrive carrying years of shame without fully recognising how much energy has gone into simply trying to keep up.

So my approach is not simply about reducing symptoms or forcing people into stricter systems. What I am usually interested in first is how that person’s mind has learned to function over time, what pressures they have adapted to, and what emotional consequences have developed alongside the ADHD itself.

This often includes looking at self esteem, emotional regulation, burnout, relationships, identity, and the experience of feeling misunderstood, either by others or by themselves.

Of course, practical strategies can still be very important. Together we may work on areas such as focus, organisation, routines, overwhelm, time management, or maintaining structure in a way that feels realistic and sustainable. But those strategies tend to work far better when they are built around the person, rather than against them.

I also recognise that ADHD rarely exists in isolation. Anxiety, depression, trauma, masking, and autistic traits can all interact with the presentation in ways that make the overall picture much more layered than it first appears.

So, after therapy, you could experience a more organised version of yourself, but perhaps a more profound experience is a different relationship with your mind, one that allows for more clarity, self trust, flexibility, and less constant self criticism.

Autistic people often spend years adapting to environments that were never built with their way of processing, feeling, or relating in mind. Over time, that constant adjustment can become exhausting. Some people grow up feeling different without knowing why. Others become highly skilled at masking, learning how to appear socially fine while internally feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or chronically on edge.

So in therapy, I do not approach autism as something that needs to be corrected or normalised. What I am usually more interested in is how the person has learned to survive in environments where they may have felt misunderstood, overstimulated, emotionally unsafe, or pressured to move further away from themselves in order to fit in.

Emotional dysregulation is often spoken about as if it appears in isolation, but many autistic people are carrying years of accumulated strain underneath it. Sensory overwhelm, social exhaustion, uncertainty, masking, shame, burnout, and repeated experiences of not feeling fully understood can all begin to shape how a person experiences both themselves and other people.

My work involves helping individuals make better sense of their emotional world without treating their differences as defects. Together we look at patterns of stress, relationships, communication, self identity, emotional regulation, boundaries, and the environments that either support or destabilise them.

For some people, therapy becomes the first place where they feel less pressure to perform socially or explain themselves in a particular way. That space can be incredibly important, especially for those who have spent much of their life feeling observed, misread, or emotionally out of sync with the people around them.

Where appropriate, I also work collaboratively with families so that the wider emotional environment around the individual can become more supportive and informed.

Through therapy, you will develop a stronger and more stable relationship with yourself, where there is more self acceptance, more clarity around your needs, and less exhaustion from constantly trying to become somebody else.

Sometimes people come to therapy with a clear difficulty they want help with. Anxiety, trauma, relationships, burnout. But quite often, underneath all of that, there is also a question that’s less obviously articulated. A feeling of not fully knowing who they are anymore, or perhaps never having had much space to figure that out in the first place.

Over time, people can become shaped around expectations, survival, roles, relationships, or the need to adapt. They learn how to function, how to cope, how to keep things moving, but somewhere along the way, parts of themselves begin to feel distant, uncertain, or difficult to access.

This can show up in many different ways. Feeling emotionally disconnected from yourself. Constantly second guessing your own thoughts or feelings. Struggling to know what you actually want. Feeling different depending on who you are around. Or carrying a persistent sense of emptiness, confusion, or self criticism that is difficult to put into words.

So therapy is not always about fixing a person. I actually don’t think it ever is as a goal, but maybe as a byproduct. Often, the work involves creating enough space to begin noticing what has been covered over, silenced, or organised around survival for a very long time.

Together, we begin looking at patterns of identity, relationships, emotional responses, self perception, past experiences, and the ways a person has learned to relate to themselves over the years. Sometimes this process brings clarity. Sometimes grief. Sometimes relief. Sometimes maybe all of that mixed together.

Developing a stronger sense of self does not mean becoming completely certain or unaffected by life. More often, it involves building a steadier internal relationship with yourself, where your thoughts, emotions, needs, and values begin to feel more coherent and more genuinely your own.

Anxiety can take many different forms. For some people, it feels loud and overwhelming, panic, racing thoughts, physical tension, constant worry. For others, it becomes so integrated into everyday life that they hardly recognise how much energy is being spent monitoring, anticipating, avoiding, or trying to stay emotionally prepared for what might go wrong.

Often, people living with anxiety become very good at functioning externally while internally feeling exhausted. They continue working, responding to people, meeting responsibilities, while carrying a near constant state of mental or physical alertness underneath it all. Does that sound like you?

So in therapy, I am usually interested in more than simply reducing symptoms. Anxiety rarely appears out of nowhere. Quite often, it develops in response to past experiences, relationships, pressure, uncertainty, emotional conflict, or environments where a person has learned that they need to stay highly aware in order to feel safe, accepted, or in control.

Together, we begin looking at the wider patterns surrounding the anxiety. This may include self criticism, perfectionism, phobia, trauma, PTSD, emotional regulation, people pleasing, fear of judgement, burnout, unresolved experiences, or the ways somebody has learned to relate to themselves under stress.

Depending on the person’s needs, therapy may involve practical strategies for managing overwhelm, intrusive thoughts, panic, avoidance, or physical symptoms. But, when appropriate, I also try to create space for a deeper exploration of what the anxiety may be communicating emotionally, rather than treating it purely as something to suppress or get rid of as quickly as possible.

For many people, anxiety slowly narrows life. It affects relationships, rest, confidence, spontaneity, and the ability to feel fully present. Therapy can become a place where those patterns are understood more clearly, rather than constantly fought against in isolation.

Depression is more than just low mood. For many people it changes the way time feels, the way motivation works, and the way they relate to themselves. Things can feel slowed down, heavy, distant, or emotionally muted. Waking up in the morning can immediately bring a sense of inner criticism, hopelessness, or a feeling of being cut off from the parts of life that used to feel meaningful.

People often try to explain it as simply feeling sad, but it can be more complex than that. Some describe feeling flat or empty rather than emotionally distressed. Some feel overwhelmed by self criticism, guilt, or a sense that nothing they do makes much difference. Even small tasks can start to feel disproportionately difficult.

In therapy, similar to how I work with other conditions, I try not to reduce depression to a checklist of symptoms. I am more interested in how the person has arrived at this point, what emotional patterns have built up over time, and what role exhaustion, loss, pressure, relationships, identity, or unresolved experiences may be playing in the background. Together we will invite depression onto the stage to hear its narrative, rather than pushing other agendas onto the stage to hide or silence depression.

Together we begin to make sense of the internal and external factors that are maintaining the low mood. This might include patterns of withdrawal, harsh self evaluation, disrupted routines, loss of connection, or long periods of carrying more than was manageable without adequate support.

Depending on the person, therapy may include structured approaches that help with behavioural activation, emotional regulation, and cognitive patterns. At the same time, there is often value in slowing the process down enough to understand what the depression is expressing, rather than treating it only as something to push away.

For many people, depression creates a narrowing of life. Energy reduces, interests fade, relationships become harder to maintain, and the future can feel distant or unclear. Therapy becomes a space where those experiences can be held with more clarity and less judgement.

Personality difficulties often sit in a very sensitive and misunderstood area of clinical work. Many people arrive carrying a long history of being labelled in ways that feel reducing or difficult to reconcile with how they experience themselves internally.

In practice, what is often called personality disorder can reflect longstanding patterns that developed in response to early relationships, repeated emotional experiences, and environments where emotional needs were not consistently understood or met. Over time, these patterns can become ways of coping, relating, protecting, or maintaining some sense of stability in relationships that may have felt unpredictable or unsafe.

In therapy, I do not approach this work through a lens of judgement or fixed identity. What tends to matter more is understanding how these patterns function, what they have been trying to achieve, and what emotional pain or unmet needs may sit underneath them.

This can include difficulties in relationships, intense emotional shifts, fears around abandonment or rejection, struggles with identity, or moments where emotions feel overwhelming and hard to regulate. These experiences are not viewed in isolation, but as part of a wider relational and developmental history.

The therapeutic process often involves building a more stable and reflective space where these experiences can be thought about rather than acted out or avoided. Over time, this can support a greater sense of continuity in self experience, more flexibility in relationships, and a reduction in the intensity of internal conflict.