Choosing a therapist can feel quite personal. You may be looking for someone who understands the difficulty you are facing, but also someone you feel you could talk to openly and trust. Alongside that personal fit, it is also worth looking at a therapist’s training, experience and professional accreditation, as these give you some reassurance about the standards they work to.

I am accredited with the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP), the main professional body for CBT in the UK, and I am also a Senior Accredited Registered Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). These professional memberships and accreditations involve recognised standards of training, practice, supervision, ongoing professional development and ethical conduct. I also have more than 25 years of clinical experience and work with approaches including CBT, Metacognitive Therapy, ACT, EMDR and Deep Brain Reorienting.

For me, good therapy is not simply about applying a particular technique. It is about understanding the individual person, working collaboratively and using the right approach at the right time. Feeling comfortable with your therapist matters, but so does knowing that the person you are working with has the training, experience and professional framework needed to offer safe and effective psychological therapy.