Understanding what happened is important. Changing what happens next is where our work begins.

I don’t believe there is one therapeutic approach that suits everybody.

You arrive with your own history, relationships, experiences, ways of coping and ways of making sense of the world. So rather than expecting you to fit into a particular model of therapy, I adapt the way I work to you.

At the heart of my approach is a simple question:

What has your mind and body learnt to do to help you cope — and is it still helping you now?

Because many of the things we struggle with as adults began as remarkably intelligent ways of adapting.

The problem is that the response can continue long after the circumstances that created it have changed.

Sometimes your reaction happens before you’ve had time to think

You may know exactly what you should do.

You know you don’t need to worry.
You know you should say No!
You know your partner isn’t the person who hurt you in the past.
You know you don’t have to get everything perfect.
You know one mistake doesn’t make you a failure.

And then something happens — and you react.

That isn’t necessarily a failure of understanding or willpower.

Many emotional responses become deeply learnt and automatic. By the time your conscious mind joins the conversation, your body and emotions may already be responding.

This is why simply telling yourself to “stop worrying”, “be more confident” or “let it go” so often doesn’t work.

In therapy, we slow that process down.

We begin to notice what happens between the trigger and the response.

And within that space, something very important becomes possible:

choice.

We work with the whole of you

I am interested in more than the story of what happened.

I pay attention to the relationship between your thoughts, emotions, body, behaviour and relationships.

What are you thinking?

What are you feeling?

What happens in your body?

What do you automatically do next?

And what happens in your relationships as a result?

Over time, patterns begin to become visible.

You might discover, for example, that what you have always called “being helpful” sometimes involves ignoring your own needs.

What looks like independence may sometimes be difficulty trusting other people to be there for you.

Perfectionism may have less to do with high standards and more to do with what making a mistake means to you.

Overthinking may be your mind’s attempt to create certainty when something inside you doesn’t feel safe.

We don’t judge these responses.

We become curious about them.

Because once you can recognise a pattern while it is happening, rather than only afterwards, you are in a much stronger position to change it.

The past matters — but we don’t have to live there

Your present responses make more sense when we understand what shaped them.

That may involve exploring childhood experiences, important relationships, attachment, loss, trauma or the roles you learnt to play within your family.

Perhaps you became the responsible one.

The peacemaker.

The achiever.

The person who didn’t cause trouble.

The person who looked after everybody else.

Or perhaps you learnt very early that depending upon other people wasn’t safe, so you learnt to depend almost entirely upon yourself.

These patterns aren’t character flaws.

They are adaptations.

Therapy allows us to understand why they developed while also asking:

“Do I still need to live this way?”

The aim isn’t to blame parents, partners or the past.

It is to stop the past having quite so much authority over the present.

Your body can sometimes tell us what words cannot

We don’t experience life only through our thoughts.

Fear can tighten the chest.

Grief can feel heavy.

Anxiety can sit in the stomach.

A particular tone of voice can produce a physical reaction before you consciously understand why.

Sometimes people can tell me the story of a difficult experience very calmly while their body is communicating something quite different.

That matters.

My background in nursing, midwifery and body-based therapies means that I naturally pay attention to what is happening physically as well as psychologically.

This doesn’t mean analysing every sensation.

It means learning to notice your body’s signals and developing a greater capacity to remain present with what you are experiencing rather than automatically becoming overwhelmed by it, suppressing it or escaping from it.

Your body becomes part of the conversation.

Creating change, not simply understanding the problem

Insight can be enormously powerful.

But there can be a frustrating moment in therapy when you find yourself saying:

“I know why I do it. I just can’t stop doing it.”

This is where my interest in neuroscience and neuroplasticity informs the way I work.

The brain learns through experience and repetition.

If a particular response has been practised hundreds or thousands of times — worrying, pleasing, withdrawing, controlling, shutting down — understanding where it came from doesn’t automatically replace it.

We therefore work on recognising the old response and creating opportunities to practise something different.

Not perfectly.

Not all at once.

But repeatedly enough that another response gradually becomes available.

This might mean learning to stay present during a difficult conversation instead of withdrawing.

Noticing anxiety without immediately obeying it.

Setting a boundary without spending the next three days feeling guilty.

Receiving support instead of automatically saying, “I’m fine.”

Or recognising an old emotional response and being able to say:

“This feels familiar — but I don’t have to respond in the familiar way.”

These seemingly small moments can represent significant change.

The approaches I may draw upon

My core work is psychotherapy, but over many years I have trained in a number of therapeutic and mind-body approaches.

Depending upon what you bring and what feels appropriate, I may draw upon elements of:

Psychotherapy and talking therapy
to explore experiences, relationships, emotions, beliefs and recurring patterns.

EMDR and trauma-informed approaches
to work with experiences that continue to feel emotionally or physically present.

EFT and body-based approaches
to help us work with emotional responses that may not shift through thinking alone.

Hypnosis and visualisation
where appropriate, to work with deeply learnt responses, imagination and internal experience.

Neuroscience and neuroplasticity
to help you understand how patterns become established and how new responses can be strengthened.

Mind-body awareness
to help you recognise the physical signals that accompany emotional responses and develop a stronger connection with your internal experience.

I don’t expect you to choose between these.

You don’t need to arrive knowing what kind of therapy you need.

We decide together what is most appropriate as the work unfolds.

Therapy is something we do together

I don’t see therapy as me sitting silently while you do all the talking.

Nor do I see my role as telling you how to live your life.

I see therapy as a collaborative process.

There will be times when I listen.

Times when I ask questions.

Times when I gently challenge something.

Times when we notice what is happening between us in the room.

And times when I may offer an explanation, exercise or practical way of working with something outside the session.

I want you to understand what we are doing and why.

Most importantly, I want therapy to gradually help you trust your own ability to recognise what you need.

Because the ultimate aim isn’t for you to become dependent upon therapy.

It is for you to become increasingly able to meet life from a place of greater awareness, choice and trust in yourself.

You don’t have to become somebody new

There is something important about the name I Can Change.

Change doesn’t necessarily mean becoming a different person.

Sometimes it means letting go of ways of protecting yourself that you no longer need.

Sometimes it means discovering that beneath the anxiety, pleasing, perfectionism, anger, withdrawal or self-doubt there is a part of you that has been there all along.

Therapy can help you find your way back to that person.

Not a better version of yourself.

More of yourself.

Feel more like yourself again

If you would like to explore whether working together might be right for you, we can begin with an initial conversation.

You don’t need to know which approach you need.

You don’t need to know exactly where to begin.

You just need to begin.

[Arrange an initial conversation]