Space to speak honestly
Explore thoughts, feelings and experiences without having to make them tidy, reasonable or easy for someone else to hear. Unwanted thoughts are considered in context rather than treated as a verdict on your character.
In person in Plymouth · Online across the UK
Counselling & hypnotherapy to help you trust yourself and be more present in your life
When thoughts, feelings or self-doubt keep pulling you away from the people and experiences that matter, we’ll work on the moments where you get stuck — so decisions can stay made, difficult moments can take less out of you and you can be more fully there for your life.
- BACP Accredited
- NCH Accredited
- Supporting clients since 2008
Start with your experience
We begin with what is happening in your life
You may be exhausted by thinking everything through, frustrated by repeating a pattern you can see but cannot easily interrupt, or aware that anxiety and self-doubt are affecting decisions, relationships, work or rest. We begin with what is happening now, what it is costing you and what you would like to be different.
Counselling gives us room to explore your experience in context — including your history, relationships, current pressures, physical health, sensory needs and the ways you have learnt to protect yourself. We will take distress seriously without assuming that every difficult thought, feeling or bodily sensation is reliable evidence that something is wrong.
You do not have to tell the whole story at once or know exactly where to begin. We can build the picture together, at a pace that allows honest and useful work.
More than somewhere to talk
What counselling can offer
Being heard matters. It can reduce shame and help you say what has been difficult to put into words. Purposeful counselling also helps us notice what keeps the difficulty going and turn insight into changes you can test in everyday life.
A clearer view of what keeps it going
Notice how triggers, expectations, attention and protective responses interact — without turning therapy into an endless search for the perfect explanation.
Practice beyond the therapy room
Try different responses where the pattern actually shows up: in decisions, relationships, work, rest or the moments when uncertainty feels hardest to leave alone.
Growing independence
Develop confidence in your ability to choose, cope, adapt and repair, so therapy becomes less necessary rather than another place you must return to for certainty.
Focused, imaginative and purposeful
What hypnotherapy can offer
Hypnotherapy uses focused attention and imagination to work with the thoughts, feelings, bodily responses or habits you want to change. It creates an opportunity to imagine, rehearse and experience different responses, rather than only talking about them.
A different way to practise change
Imagery, suggestion and mental rehearsal can help you explore and practise more flexible responses before drawing on them in everyday situations.
Supporting the stress response
Hypnosis may influence autonomic processes involved in arousal and settling. Focused attention, breathing and imagery can support greater flexibility in how the body responds to stress, although experiences vary.
Strengthening attention and self-trust
Hypnotherapy can help you practise moving attention, relating differently to thoughts or sensations, and drawing on confidence and choice when familiar patterns appear.
Counselling and hypnotherapy
Two ways of working, together or separately
Counselling and hypnotherapy can each be used as a form of therapy in their own right, or combined within the same piece of work. The balance depends on what brings you to therapy and what you would like to change. Some people include hypnosis within counselling; others contact me specifically for hypnotherapy, sometimes after previous approaches have not brought the change they hoped for.
How we’ll work together
A purposeful process, not a fixed programme
The work has direction, but it is not a staircase that everyone follows in the same order. We will keep returning to what you want therapy to change, what your experience is showing us and whether the work is helping outside the therapy room.
Begin with context and fit
We will explore what is happening, what matters to you, relevant history, risk, practical circumstances and what you hope will be different.
Build a useful map
Together we will identify triggers, meanings, feelings, attentional habits and protective responses, keeping the explanation open to revision.
Create new experiences
We will choose manageable ways to test old predictions and practise responding differently, without manufacturing discomfort for its own sake.
Review real-life change
We will notice what you are re-entering, deciding or enjoying, which protective responses are loosening and where the approach needs adapting.
Methods should serve the work — not become a collection of techniques
Depending on your needs, therapy may draw on CBT and ERP principles, ACT-informed work, behavioural experiments, attention work, hypnosis, and EMDR or Rewind where difficult past experiences are relevant. We will use methods for a clear reason, within a shared understanding of your pattern.
The LIBERATE Approach™ provides the flexible framework that connects these elements while keeping the therapeutic relationship, consent and individual formulation central.
A wider measure of progress
Change should become visible in your life
It is understandable to want relief. As the pattern loosens, you may feel calmer, experience quieter or less frequent thoughts, check less or recover more quickly when anxiety appears. We will also pay attention to what those changes make possible.
Less time inside the problem
A thought or feeling may still appear without automatically taking over the next hour, evening or decision.
More flexible responses
It can become easier to pause before checking, analysing, avoiding or seeking reassurance — and choose what the situation actually needs.
More of you available for life
Attention and energy can return to relationships, work, rest and ordinary experiences without waiting for perfect certainty or emotional comfort.
A choice of setting
Counselling in Plymouth or online across the UK
You can choose the setting that best supports your circumstances and the work we decide to do together.
In person in Plymouth
Meet with me in a calm, private therapy room in Plymouth, Devon. In-person work may suit you if you value leaving home or work behind and having a dedicated space for therapy.
Online across the UK
Work with me from a private space that suits you. Online therapy removes geography as a barrier, so you can choose a therapist for specialist fit rather than proximity alone.
Read more about online therapy →Accredited, experienced and straightforward
I’m a BACP Accredited counsellor and NCH Accredited hypnotherapist. I have supported clients since 2008 and specialise in OCD, intrusive thoughts, anxiety and persistent uncertainty.
Common questions
Before you decide
What difficulties do you offer counselling for?
I specialise in OCD, unwanted intrusive thoughts, anxiety, panic and persistent uncertainty. I also work with related patterns such as checking, reassurance, avoidance, internal monitoring and perfectionism. Where trauma or difficult past experiences are relevant, EMDR or Rewind may be considered if appropriate.
Does counselling mean we will only talk?
No. Talking and being understood are important, but therapy may also involve observation, imagery, attention work, behavioural experiments or carefully planned practice between sessions. Any exercise should have a clear purpose and be proportionate; therapy should not become another demanding performance standard.
Can I come specifically for hypnotherapy?
Yes. Some people come specifically for hypnotherapy, including after previous approaches have not brought the change they hoped for. Others begin with counselling and decide that hypnosis would be useful as part of the work. Hypnotherapy uses focused attention and imagination in support of your therapeutic goals.
How will we know whether counselling is helping?
We will agree what you want therapy to change and review progress in ordinary life. That might mean spending less time analysing or checking, making decisions without repeatedly reopening them, recovering more quickly after difficult moments, being more present in relationships or needing less reassurance. Symptoms may also become quieter or less disruptive, but progress is not measured only by whether you feel calm.
When you’re ready to do the work
Ready when a suitable space becomes available?
Join my priority list and I’ll let you know when an appropriate counselling appointment becomes available in Plymouth or online. Joining the list does not commit you to booking.