How I can help

Adoption touches many lives—adoptees, adoptive parents, birth families, siblings, and foster carers—and each person's experience is unique. While adoption can bring love, safety, and connection, it can also involve complex emotions such as grief, identity confusion, loss, guilt, or feelings of not belonging. These emotions often emerge or resurface at different stages of life, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Therapy can offer a safe, supportive space to explore the emotional impact of adoption, whether you are an adoptee seeking to understand your story, an adoptive parent navigating attachment or behavioural challenges, a sibling processing the impact of having an adopted brother or sister, a birth relative processing loss, or a foster carer coping with the emotional demands of your role.

Together, we can work to untangle the layers of experience, address unresolved feelings, and build resilience and understanding. Therapy can help with issues like attachment difficulties, identity development, managing transitions, or dealing with questions that arise around contact, secrecy, or reunion.

Each person’s adoption journey is different, but no one has to navigate it alone. Therapy can provide the space to process, heal, and grow—helping you move forward with greater clarity, compassion, and connection to yourself and others.

I have lived experience of adoption as an adoptive parent myself and also having fostered for many years, caring for children from birth through to 10 years old.

I also have undertaken additional training and hold a Certificate in Adoption Support Counselling from The Albany Centre/Barnados.

Childhood trauma can leave deep and lasting emotional imprints, shaping how we see ourselves, relate to others, and navigate the world. Whether it involved neglect, abuse, loss, or growing up in an unpredictable or unsafe environment, early trauma often leads to patterns of anxiety, low self-worth, difficulty trusting others, or feeling emotionally numb or overwhelmed.

Therapy can provide a safe, supportive space to begin exploring these experiences—at your own pace and without judgment. You don’t have to revisit painful memories all at once; the process is guided gently and with care. Together, we work to understand how early experiences continue to affect your current thoughts, feelings, and relationships, and how to begin creating new, healthier patterns.

I use approaches such as trauma-informed therapy, inner child work, and creative activities to help process and explore unresolved pain, regulate the nervous system, and build emotional resilience. Therapy can also support you in developing a stronger sense of self, setting boundaries, and reclaiming your right to feel safe and connected.

Peter Levine is credited with saying:

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathic witness”.

This can be why, after a traumatic event, some people experience a trauma response while others don’t, and particularly why childhood abandonment, abuse and neglect can leave some people with complex PTSD symptoms, sometimes for decades.

Healing from childhood trauma is possible. Through therapy, you can begin to make sense of the past, feel more present in your life, and move toward a future with greater confidence, clarity, and emotional freedom.

It maybe that you are an ex-boarder yourself or have a partner who was sent to boarding school.

Psychotherapy can offer meaningful support for individuals affected by having been sent to boarding school as children. Boarding School Syndrome—a term describing the emotional difficulties that often stem from being sent to boarding school at a young age, can lead to long-term challenges such as emotional detachment, difficulty forming close relationships, perfectionism, and unresolved feelings of abandonment.

In therapy, we can create a safe and supportive space to explore the lasting impact of these early separations and the often strict or isolating environments of boarding school. Many former boarders have learned how to suppress their vulnerability in order to cope, which can result in emotional disconnection later in life. Through compassionate and tailored therapeutic work, we can begin to understand how these past experiences continue to shape your current patterns and relationships.

I use approaches such as inner child work, or trauma-informed practice to help process and integrate painful memories, to build emotional healing and resilience. Therapy can provide a space to reconnect with your feelings, develop self-understanding, and begin to replace survival strategies with authentic ways of relating to yourself and others.

Healing from boarding school syndrome is possible. Through psychotherapy, you can cultivate a greater sense of connection, self-compassion, and emotional freedom—key steps toward reclaiming your story and your well-being.

As an ex-boarder myself I have lived experience (as a girl) of having been sent to boarding school, and have undertaken additional CPD training to work with ex-boarders.

Caring for a child with a disability or long term illness can be both deeply rewarding and profoundly challenging. Family carers often face high levels of emotional, physical, and mental strain—balancing medical appointments, advocacy, and daily care, all while trying to meet the needs of other family members and maintain their own well-being. It's common to experience feelings of guilt, isolation, exhaustion, or even grief for the life once imagined.

Therapy can offer a supportive, non-judgmental space where carers can explore these complex emotions, regain a sense of balance, and feel truly heard. It can help you process the ongoing stress and adapt to the ever-changing demands of caregiving, while also reconnecting with your own identity and needs outside the caregiving role.

In therapy, we may work on developing coping strategies, strengthening emotional resilience, and finding ways to communicate more effectively within the family or with professionals. This can ease feelings of overwhelm and help you make room for your own growth, rest, and reflection.

You do not have to carry this alone. Psychotherapy can be a place to pause, reflect, and begin to restore your emotional resources—so that you can care not only for your child, but also for yourself.

I have lived experience of being the carer of a child (now adult) with disabilities and complex medical conditions, so understand how challenging it can be to navigate this role and leave enough space and energy for myself.