BACP Registered Psychotherapist

I’m just walking home with a coffee, after watching a man fall off a paddle board like a seal in a suit - laughing (quietly, kindly) as...

A client sits across the room, bewildered. The relationship is over, yet the confusion remains. “I just don’t understand,” they say. “How...

Maybe you’ve known someone like this. Someone who, in the beginning, was sensitive, thoughtful, and deeply attuned to you. The connection...

Unprocessed experiences don’t slot neatly into the past. They hang around, shaping how we feel now. Sometimes they come from clear...

I’ve been thinking about honesty, specifically: is it possible to be psychologically healthy and knowingly not tell the truth? It’s a...

I’ve been thinking about disidentification recently as a prelude to individuation, arguably the central aim in a successful psychotherapy...

When in connection with someone who has lived through trauma, particularly sexual trauma, it can be difficult to know what to do, or how...

Notes from the Therapy Room - Sarah Ryan I’ve worked for years with clients who carry something difficult to name. It isn’t always...

Many women who have experienced psychological, emotional, sexual, or psychic boundary violations find themselves navigating a deep and...

One of the clearest signs that a client is beginning to move toward a learned secure attachment within themselves is when they stop...

Grief doesn’t always come when it’s expected. Sometimes it arrives years later - triggered by a moment, a relationship, or a silence that...

In trauma work, emptiness is often misunderstood. But as Peter Levine writes, the healing process can become “a portal opening to...

Who’s in Charge? On External Regulation, Internal Authority, and the Conditions for Safety. In some developmental environments, safety is...

In some lives, the self is not lost, but deferred. Not through overt trauma or disappearance, but through a more subtle contract: you...

It’s simple, but important. In a healthy relationship, if you tell someone they scared you - even unintentionally - a healthy man will...

Heartbreak is often a rupture in the psychic field. What was once held in connection falls away, and with it, the scaffolding that gave...

Insecure attachment creates a particular bind. You might find yourself needing constant reassurance and proximity, because you’ve never...

A trauma bond doesn’t always look like abuse. It can look like passion, devotion, even love - but it is love entangled with survival. It is a bond built through cycles of harm and relief, where pain and comfort come from the same source.

Trauma doesn't just leave scars on the body; it can fracture the very sense of self. This internal fragmentation, where parts of us feel...

There is something deeply reassuring about knowing that, no matter what unfolds in the in-between, there is a place - an anchor in time -...