Patient profile

Who I see

I work with adults whose mental health has become entangled with a chronic physical condition or with the cumulative weight of medical experience. Most of the people I see have spent years inside the healthcare system before reaching me, often after a generic CBT referral that didn’t quite fit their situation.

Typical patients are working-age adults living with chronic pain, long-term illness, the after-effects of frightening medical events, or persistent health anxiety. Some have a clear diagnosis and others don’t. Some are doing well clinically and need help with the psychological load; others are deteriorating physically and need help to keep their lives feeling like their own as that happens.

I’m BABCP-accredited and registered with the Professional Standards Authority. Sessions are delivered online via secure video call, which makes me accessible across the UK and to your patients abroad (with the exception of the US and Canada, where insurance restrictions apply).

Presentations

Presentations I work with

• ✓Chronic pain and persistent pain syndromes (fibromyalgia, chronic back and neck pain, pelvic and genital pain, persistent headaches and vestibular migraines)
• ✓Long-term conditions (diabetes, cardiac and respiratory conditions, IBD and IBS, autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, ME/CFS, Long COVID, MS, post-stroke)
• ✓Skin conditions with significant psychosocial impact (eczema, psoriasis)
• ✓Medical trauma, accident trauma, birth trauma, and trauma following procedures or hospital admissions
• ✓Health anxiety, including illness-related anxiety after recovery, fear of recurrence, and avoidance of medical care
• ✓Adjustment to diagnosis, prognosis, and the ongoing demands of self-management
• ✓Depression and anxiety presenting alongside the conditions above

If a patient’s presentation isn’t on the list but sits at the intersection of physical and psychological health, please get in touch and we can talk through fit.

Approach

Clinical approach

ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is the central modality for most of my work. The therapeutic targets are psychological flexibility, values-led behavioural activation, and reduction of experiential avoidance, all delivered in a way that explicitly does not treat the underlying physical condition as a thinking error.

EMDR is used for trauma indications, including medical trauma, accident trauma, and the cumulative trauma that can build up across difficult healthcare experiences.

CBT informs the wider framework. My BABCP accreditation grounds the practice in established evidence-based traditions, while the day-to-day work draws flexibly on the modality that fits the presentation in front of me.

Referrals

How to refer

The referral process is deliberately light. Patients don’t need a formal referral letter to access the service, but if you’d like to send one, that’s welcome.

Collaboration

Working alongside you

With patient consent, I’m happy to liaise with the wider clinical team. Where there’s an active treatment plan, rehabilitation programme, or pain management input running in parallel, coordination tends to make the work more useful for everyone involved. I can provide brief updates, attend MDT discussions where helpful, or write to a referrer with a short summary on request.

I won’t share clinical detail without explicit patient consent, but I’d rather be in touch than not, particularly where a patient is navigating multiple clinicians.

CPD and community

Free CPD workshops for pain professionals

Alongside the clinical practice, I offer free CPD workshops for pain-related professionals working locally. They’re aimed at pain consultants and team members, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, GPs with a pain interest, and fellow therapists who see patients at this intersection.

Each session runs online for around an hour, in small groups, free of charge. The focus is on what modern psychological therapy looks like for chronic pain, particularly third-wave CBT and ACT approaches. The workshops are also a chance to build informal links between clinicians who often work with the same patients.

Read more about the CPD workshops →

Practical

Practicalities

Scope

Who I’m not the right fit for

I’m a specialist for adults at the chronic-illness, pain, and trauma intersection working in an outpatient capacity. I’m not the right person for patients with active high-risk presentations needing crisis-level mental health input, patients requiring inpatient or stepped psychiatric care, patients under 17, or those needing assessment-only or diagnostic input rather than therapy.

If your patient’s needs are outside what I can offer, I’ll say so honestly and try to point you towards a more appropriate service.