Many families come to me after speaking to several professionals already. I do not assume that starting therapy straight away is always the right first step. Each new child or young person begins with a careful initial assessment, so we can think about what has already been tried, what may be contributing to the difficulty, and what kind of support may be most helpful.

This may lead to psychotherapy with me, parent counselling and guidance, school liaison, healthcare liaison, onward referral, or further assessment, such as an autism assessment or psychiatric consultation. Where helpful, I liaise with schools, GPs, paediatricians, clinical nurse specialists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and other professionals involved in your child’s care.

My approach is psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, evidence-informed and biopsychosocial. This means I think about the whole child: their emotional life, development, family relationships, school experience, neurodivergence, physical health, medical history and the wider professional network around them.

I do not see psychotherapy as simply managing symptoms or correcting behaviour. Symptoms matter, and families often need help quickly when a child is suffering. But meaningful therapy also asks a deeper question: who is this child becoming, and what parts of them have not yet been understood?

When a child feels that someone wants to know them, rather than just fix them, something important can happen. They may begin to feel less alone, more curious about themselves, and more able to discover that they are someone worth knowing.

I work beyond diagnostic labels and symptoms. I am interested in the child behind the presentation, and in helping families understand not only what is going wrong, but what may be trying to grow.

I have over a decade of NHS experience, including paediatric hospital settings such as UCLH TRACCS, where I worked with young people affected by complex physical health conditions, functional symptoms, CFS/ME, Long Covid and FND. My doctoral research focuses on integrated care between child psychotherapists and paediatricians in hospital settings, and my clinical qualification paper focused on working with CFS/ME patient groups.

Where physical symptoms or school attendance difficulties are part of the picture, I start from the position that symptoms are real. Therapy is not about telling a child that symptoms are “all psychological”. It is a space to understand how body, mind, stress, illness, school and family life may be affecting each other.