Frequently Asked Questions

Fees are from £70-£90 per session (50 minutes, or ‘therapeutic hour’).

I do have a limited number of concessionary places available for students and those on a low income. Please contact me to enquire about availablity. 

If you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment I require 48 hours’ notice; otherwise you will still need to pay for any sessions missed. I accept payment in cash or by bank transfer.

I offer sessions in-person, online or a combination of both. I work from private offices in Epsom, Surrey (KT17), Surrey and Central London (SW1W).

Yes, I adhere to the ethical frameworks of my accrediting bodies, BACP and UKCP. I take confidentiality, professional boundaries, and client care extremely seriously.  

Short-term therapy, also known as ‘time-limited therapy’ or ‘solution-focused therapy’, usually focuses on finding strategies to manage or talk through a difficulty that is present in your life right now. Short-term therapy seeks to enhance awareness and find solutions to that present difficulty and generally consists of six to twelve sessions. Longer-term therapy tends to view current issues as symptomatic of underlying issues stemming from patterns of behaviour and ways of relating. These are often unconscious or we may be cognisant of them but feel unable to bring about change. While short-term therapy may also view current issues the same way, the main difference is that short-term work will focus more on the symptoms whereas longer-term work aims to explore and address the underlying patterns of behaviour, coping strategies and relational ways of being that develop over time and become woven into our sense of self. 

Psychotherapist training is usually twice as long as that undertaken by counsellors (generally four vs. two years) and psychotherapists are trained to work at more depth and with more complex issues. This isn’t a guarantee that a psychotherapist will be better than a counsellor as experience, insight, empathy, and further training are all important things to consider and, as mentioned above, the way you and your therapist work together is paramount so finding a therapist that ‘gets you’ is really important.

Sessions are weekly and are a ‘therapeutic hour’ which is 50 minutes.  Regardless of whether you attend short or long-term therapy, regularity is really important to get the most out of therapy so committing to weekly sessions is an essential part of the therapeutic process.

The length of the therapy will be discussed in our first session and based on your requirements. In my experience, clients can achieve a lot in around 8 -12 sessions, but longer term work might be more suitable with trauma informed work. Fewer or addditional sessions can always be agreed upon based on what feels right for you. 

Choosing a therapist can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re faced with so many different therapeutic models. Each approach has its own focus — for instance, psychodynamic therapy tends to explore early experiences and how they shape the present, while approaches like CBT or Gestalt often work more directly with what is happening in the here-and-now, recognising that our current thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by the past in subtle ways.

Different people naturally gravitate toward different approaches, and there is no single “right” method. Most therapies ultimately aim to support greater self-awareness and understanding — helping you recognise the patterns, beliefs, and emotional responses that shape your life. What research consistently shows is that the single most important factor in effective therapy is the quality of the therapeutic relationship: how safe, understood, and supported you feel with your therapist. This matters more than the specific modality they use. For this reason, it’s important to choose someone you feel comfortable working with. At the same time, a therapist’s training and professional registration do matter, so it’s worth checking their qualifications and membership of relevant UK governing bodies.

Not at all. Many of us don’t remember large parts of our childhood or past experiences — especially if those experiences were overwhelming or inconsistent. This is not a failure or a problem; it is the nervous system’s way of protecting us. You do not need to remember everything, or talk in detail about the past, in order to heal.

Therapy is not about excavating forgotten memories. Instead, healing happens through understanding how past experiences show up in the present — in your thoughts, emotions, patterns, body responses, and relationships. Sometimes exploring earlier experiences can help make sense of what you’re feeling today, but we only go there if it feels relevant, supportive, and safe.

The aim is not to stay in the past, but to build the awareness, regulation, and inner resources that allow you to create new choices in the present. Healing becomes possible not through remembering everything that happened, but through gently noticing what is happening inside you now and learning new ways of responding.