How I Work
I work with emotions, body signals, and the ways earlier experiences continue to shape how we relate to ourselves and others. My work primarily draws on Schema Therapy and EMDR.
Working with Emotions
A central part of my work is helping people develop a greater awareness of their emotions and the messages they carry. Emotions such as sadness, hurt, anger, fear, and joy provide important information about our experiences and needs. However, many people were not supported to understand, express, or respond to their feelings in healthy ways growing up. Instead, they learned to ignore, suppress, criticise, or become overwhelmed by them.
When people are able to experience their emotions within a safe, supportive, and attuned therapeutic relationship, they often find them easier to understand and respond to in healthy ways. Together, we become curious about what your emotions may be communicating, with the aim of helping you respond to them with understanding, validation, compassion, and support rather than judgement, dismissal, or avoidance.
Schema Therapy
Many people find themselves repeating frustrating patterns in their relationships, careers, or emotional lives, even when they know those patterns are not serving them. They might carry a persistent feeling that they are not good enough, put others' needs ahead of their own, struggle to trust others, or expect rejection.
Schema Therapy offers a way of understanding these recurring patterns and why they continue to influence our lives. A schema is a recurring pattern of beliefs, feelings, and expectations about yourself, others, or the world. Schemas often develop early in life when core emotional needs such as safety, acceptance, nurturance, validation, protection, guidance, or healthy limits were not consistently met.
As children, we develop ways of coping with these painful experiences. Some people strive to be perfect, some avoid vulnerability or closeness, while others become self-critical or seek constant approval. Although these ways of coping may have helped us adapt earlier in life, they can create difficulties in adulthood.
When present-day situations resemble earlier experiences in which a schema developed, that schema can become activated. I often describe this as a “button” being pressed in the brain, leading you to see yourself through that familiar lens. For example, if your partner raises a concern, it may unconsciously echo earlier experiences of criticism. In that moment, a “not good enough” schema may be triggered, and your emotional reaction may feel stronger than the current situation alone would explain.
Schema Therapy helps you recognise these patterns, understand their origins, and respond in ways that better meet your current needs.
In therapy, we work to strengthen your Healthy Adult - the part of you that recognises your inherent worth, responds to your feelings and needs with understanding, care, and respect, sets healthy boundaries, and helps you build a life that reflects who you truly are rather than the ways you learned to adapt.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR helps process experiences that may still be held in a distressing or unresolved way, so they become less emotionally charged and have less impact in the present. It also supports the development of more helpful and supportive beliefs about yourself.
When we experience distressing events, the brain’s natural processing system can become overwhelmed, leaving memories “stuck” in their original emotional form. Because these experiences have not been fully processed, they can be easily triggered in the present, leading us to respond as though the earlier experience is happening again.
EMDR is understood to support the brain’s capacity to process these experiences, reducing their emotional and physical intensity over time.
EMDR also supports a shift in perspective- from beliefs formed at the time of distressing experiences toward more adaptive and supportive beliefs in the present. For example, from “I am vulnerable” to “I can protect myself now,” or from “I am unlovable” to “I am worthy of love”.
EMDR can be helpful in processing the impact of painful earlier relationship experiences, including criticism, emotional neglect, rejection, inconsistency, or not feeling emotionally safe, seen, or understood. These experiences can shape how we see ourselves, others, and the world, and continue to influence our emotions, relationships, and ways of coping in the present.
Rather than erasing difficult memories, EMDR helps reduce the emotional impact they continue to have, allowing people to respond from who they are today rather than from the pain of earlier experiences.