Philosophy

My Approach

As an Integrative Psychotherapist, I draw on a range of approaches to tailor my approach to the unique needs of each client. Before your first session, you’ll be invited to complete a preferences questionnaire so you can share how you’d like your therapy to be. The modalities the mainly inspire my practice are:

Narrative therapy is a form of psychotherapy that helps individuals separate their identity from their problems by exploring and rewriting their personal stories. It emphasizes the importance of personal narratives in shaping one’s identity and encourages clients to identify their values and strengths to create more positive life stories.

Liberation psychology reimagines therapy by focusing on systemic oppression and socio-political factors rather than just individual pathology. Instead of solely adapting a person to an unjust world, this framework promotes collective healing, critical consciousness, and community empowerment.

Cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) is a time-limited, integrative form of psychotherapy developed in the UK by Anthony Ryle that blends cognitive therapy with psychoanalytic ideas to help people recognize and change unhelpful patterns in their thoughts, emotions, and relationships.

Behavioral therapy is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on changing problematic behaviors and beliefs using various techniques and strategies. It is often used to treat issues like anxiety, depression, and phobias by modifying behaviors through reinforcement and other evidence-based methods.

Phenomenological therapy is a therapeutic approach that emphasizes understanding an individual’s unique experiences and perceptions. It is rooted in the philosophical framework of phenomenology, which focuses on how people perceive and interpret their reality.

Systemic therapy is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on the interactions and relationships within groups, such as families or teams, rather than just on individual thoughts and feelings. It aims to identify and address dysfunctional patterns within these systems to improve communication and relationships.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a psychotherapy approach developed by Richard Schwartz that views the mind as composed of multiple subpersonalities or “parts,” each with its own perspective and role. The goal of IFS is to help individuals access their core Self, which is compassionate and undamaged, to heal and integrate these parts for better mental health.

Somatic therapy treats the body as a partner in healing, not just the mind. Rooted in the understanding that psychological experiences leave physical traces, somatic approaches invite people to pay attention to sensations, posture, breath, and movement as gateways to emotional insight and recovery.

Designed for You

Where unfinished edges are embraced

I believe that a well-lived life embraces the full range of human experience – the messy, the hard, and the broken just as much as the happy, the the beautiful and the easy.

In my work, I help people make sense of life’s challenges so they can move forward with greater clarity and confidence.

Positive young woman in casual clothes smiling while sitting on chair after psychotherapy session with anonymous female doctor in modern office

‘My therapist said’

Psychotherapy language has been assimilated into everyday conversation, People increasingly hear about ‘toxic’ people and ‘abusive’ and ‘codependent’ relationships, but also about ‘coping mechanisms’, ‘traumas’, ‘anxieties’ and ‘emotional triggers’. Tiktoks and Reels gaining millions in likes, with everyday life and personal challenges now being described in the same way as psychological deficits. Natural human suffering, sadness, or grief is frequently relabeled as a clinical disorder, framed as something only curable through professional services.

Philosopher Michel Foucault famously described how control over how people talk about something, i.e the language used and the meaning given to language, equates with control over how a person perceives and comes to experience both themselves and the world. How mental health is talked about significantly affects how we understand ourselves and and others.

The wellness industry thrives on individual responsibility. Can’t keep up at work? Fix your mindset. Feeling depressed? Journal your way out of it. Have you ever been told to “stay positive” or “practice gratitude” in the face of something truly awful, like a job that grinds you into the ground or a government that doesn’t seem to care? The message is clear: if you’re struggling, it’s because you’re not trying hard enough

The aim of modern psychology is to help individuals and families adapt to the status quo. ‘Tolerating discomfort’. People are often told to practice mindfulness, gratitude, or resilience to cope with systemic burnout or financial instability. Work place wellbeing workshops, in which overworked underpaid employees are given mindfulness exercises to help manage stress. Burnt out? Try mindfulness. Can’t pay your bills? Work on your abundance mindset. Struggling with anxiety? Meditate harder.

Powerful emotions such as grief, uncertainty, identity struggles, or loneliness are often treated as individual problems that require expert intervention. The focus from fixing flawed social or economic systems to fixing the individual.Marginalized individuals and groups experience prejudice and bias, internalize negative stereotypes, and are then pathologized by Western psychology for identifying or responding.

Stories. Still being woven.

With my background in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and linguistics, I have committed years to better understanding how individuals and communities can liberate themselves from harmful narratives.

Ive long been fascinated by some of the paradoxes of modern life:

We are now the most connected civilisation in the history of mankind, yet rates of loneliness continue to soar.

The global Wellness Industry is worth approx 6.8 Trillion dollars, yet more and more people report being depressed.

The UK Workforce has never worked longer hours, yet productivity is stagnant

After many years of research and reflection, I set up Unhemmed Hearts to offer something different to mainstream therapy services.

My practice is not about being analysed or advised, diagnosed.

It will not make you a ‘better’ person.

It will however invite you to reflect on the person you are- and the ideas influence your sense of self

Through reflective conversations and dialogic workshops, Unhemmed Hearts invites people to pause and explore the stories shaping our lives. Together we examine the threads of identity, power, belonging, and social expectation that influence how we relate to ourselves and each other. We reflect on how meaning has been made, and tease out the roots of core beliefs.

The aim is not to provide solutions or diagnoses, but to create spaces where people can think together about their lives, relationships, and environments in a more open and honest way. In these spaces, conversation returns to something more fundamental: people speaking and listening to one another with curiosity rather than judgement.

Liberation Psychology


Human experiences do not arise in isolation. They are shaped by relationships, social norms, economic pressures, cultural expectations, and power structures that influence how we see ourselves and how we relate to others.

Unhemmed Hearts creates spaces where people can reflect together on the wider contexts shaping their lives. This includes conversations about identity and belonging, power and roles within.

A hem finishes a piece of fabric, sealing its edges neatly in place. Something unhemmed, by contrast, remains open at the edges. Threads are visible. The material can still be examined, adjusted, and reworked.

Unhemmed Hearts invites us to approach our lives in a similar way.

Rather than assuming our stories are fixed and complete, we can look more closely at the threads that shape them. And sometimes, in doing so together, new possibilities begin to appear.