Whatever problem or “symptom” you find yourself struggling with, I will aim, through psychoanalytic approach, to work with it holistically and build a context for its understanding. This way we do justice to you as a unique person and thus provide us with root causes of your difficulties which encompass both your present situation and your personal history.

In my long experience in working as a contemporary psychoanalytic therapist I have found that people seek my help when the gap between who the person is or seems to be and who they would want to be becomes too wide, too far apart, and too painful. This gap may be felt with differing degrees – some clients start therapy  overwhelmed by crashing hopelessness and depression that affects all aspects of their life severely limiting the capacity to function. For others, it is possible to fulfil their daily tasks and find enjoyment in their work and in relating to others but, seemingly out of the blue, they begin experiencing panic/anxiety attacks they cannot understand, or have intrusive and unwanted thoughts or struggle with addictions and feel something within them is sabotaging their desired goals. Other clients are aware of the internal conflict, they feel guilty about their sexual fantasies or behaviour, their core identity or they desire intimacy and successful relationships but seem to keep “ending up” with partners who cannot be relied upon. Finally, there are people who cannot make any sense of why they are seeking therapy: they are successful at work, have supportive partners and families, no financial burdens and yet they feel empty and dead inside and guilty on top of this as they should feel happy.

How do we reconcile this gap between reality and desire? Each client finds his or her own answers in the confidential and non-judgemental therapeutic setting where I, as the therapist, will be attentive to the unconscious aspects of my client’s communication. If what I feedback to the client resonates, s/he too will be curios and attentive to the hidden aspects of themselves which often hold the key to personal growth and to the unlocking of felling stuck. To get to this point, we will need to collaborate, explore dreams and daydreams, remain silent when this is needed – this process cannot be forced and the pace will be set by the client and by the trust we build and develop. We will need to make space for the mundane as well as the profound, for fantasies however unusual or ordinary; for learning about what you, as the client fear the most and what you desire the most as well as about what bores you or leaves you indifferent. In the end, the gap should narrow (this is the feedback I have heard from most clients who engaged in therapy with me regardless of the duration of our work) – you should feel more enabled to follow your desires, be more forgiving of yourself and your “weaknesses”, more appreciative of your strengths and more able to discern what ambitions or goals are authentically yours and which are someone else’s, more “knowing of what to throw away and knowing what to keep”.

I have built my experience working with people from different sections of society (in the NHS and voluntary sector organisations) and am committed to incorporating and exploring the relevance of race, class and gender in the specificity of the client’s experience of being in the world and of the damaging effects of unfair discrimination. I am particularly interested in contemporary philosophy and social theory: most notably in the works of Butler, Derrida and Foucault and the psychoanalytic writings of Michael Eigen.