Psychotherapist in East London

I work with people who have lost themselves. People who have sanded down their edges, or have hidden parts of themselves away. This could look like one of a thousand things. It could look something like:

• You take on more work than you can bear. You struggle to say no to your boss, and perhaps you notice yourself taking ownership of group failures, or divesting ownership of your successes.
• You find it hard to express yourself fully with your partner. You can listen to them when they are angry or upset, but it feels harder when it’s your turn. You bite your tongue and you might notice yourself taking a step back.
• You might be losing yourself to an addiction — something you cannot stop even though you want to.
• Perhaps the hiding happened before. Perhaps something happened to you that shouldn’t have happened. You might never have talked about it since, but perhaps now you feel ready.
• Or you grew up queer. A part of you had to hide because it wasn’t safe. That is a skill you perhaps got too good at.
• And above all of that, there is the future. The climate, politics — these things are scary, and you might feel you have lost your North Star. Your life lacks direction, and you are struggling.

There are a thousand ways we can lose ourselves — what we might call self-abandonment. It’s a strategy that many of us had to learn to get through. My therapy is about unhiding. It’s about getting to know the real, full you. It’s about showing up more fully in work, in your relationships and in life. It’s about living fully in the world.

More on what self-abandonment is, and how I work with it →

Therapy in East London

East London is a wonderful place. I have lived here for many years, and I hope to live here for many years more. I love it because it’s green, I love it because it’s diverse. I have always felt at home here. Many people do.

But there’s a particular flavour to life here, or at least there can be. Depending on who you ask, East London is trendy, and it’s the home of pop-ups, clubs, vintage shops. It’s cool. Walk around places like London Fields or parts of Dalston and you might feel a sense of home, like you are living at the centre of the world. Or it’s where the tech sector lives, start-ups and the like. There are places like the SXSW festival in Shoreditch, Silicon Roundabout. Or if you live in the Stratford area, loads of charities are now based there. There are endless new-build flats going up, still.

There’s a lot going on. And, amidst all that chaos, all that life, there is you. A person, trying to make sense of their surroundings.

I work with people who feel lost, and in East London, that has a certain flavour. For some people, there is a strong sense of hustle culture. We are used to the idea that workers in the city — lawyers, brokers, analysts — might work long hours. That culture leads to stress and burnout, as it always has. (And, probably, always will.) But there is a particular flavour I’m seeing of start-up, hustle culture. That sense of being part of something new, that could potentially be The Next Big Thing. It creates a pressure, a pace, a sense that a moment’s rest will result in a competitor gaining an edge. A moment’s rest, and you’ll lose it all. This makes it harder to stay grounded. It makes it harder not to get lost in the frantic energy of progress.

And if you live and work in that world, you might notice it creeping into your social life too. Your hobbies become a ‘side gig’. The sense that you always need to be working towards something productive or useful. It can make it hard to relax, hard to switch off. It’s hard to get a sense of who you are, as opposed to what you do.

There’s a flavour of this in other spaces too. If you are someone who enjoys the vibrancy of East London, you might find yourself caught up in the moment. You might have got so used to knowing the coolest spots, the vibiest places, that it’s easy to get lost in that. Surrounded by people who seem to have their lives sorted, who are you in the madness?

If you’re feeling like you live in the best place in the world, you are not alone. If you’re feeling like there’s something missing, that you are somehow not quite you, you are not alone either.

Let’s chat about it.

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Where I am, and what it costs

The room is at 231 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6PJ — in Shoreditch, in the London Borough of Hackney. Shoreditch High Street station is a two-minute walk, and Liverpool Street about ten. Most people travel in from Hackney, Dalston, London Fields, Clapton, Hoxton or Stratford in under twenty minutes.

Sessions are £80 for 50 minutes, usually weekly. We can also meet online.

I’m a registered member of the BACP, with a master’s in Psychotherapy from the Minster Centre. You can read more about me, see fees and FAQs, or find full directions to the room.

If any of this sounds like you, the first step is a free 15‑minute call.

Book a free call