I love my work as a psychotherapist and I love working and living in the City of London and meet a huge range of clients who are seeking help with subjects that include Bullying, Boundaries, Accusations, Anger, Anxiety, Confidence, Imposter Syndrome, Burnout and Overwhelm, Wrong Job, Death at Work and Relationships of all kinds.
Barbican and London Bridge counselling and therapy
I am fortunate to spend my days with clients who are accomplished, immensely capable and switched on, often leaders in their field or on their way to becoming so. Who are they?
Lawyers, Bankers and Management Consultants – as you might expect from my location at Barbican and London Bridge.
Creatives from Hoxton and Shoreditch – this is where my background in advertising is helpful. I understand the way advertising, PR and media companies work and I get the jargon and acronyms.
Start-up Entrepreneurs – from Silicon roundabout and Hoxton.
Leaders of Charities, NGOs and Social Enterprises -part of my professional background is working with charities, working one to one and running coaching groups for senior managers and CEOs. I have consulted for charities and co-founded an HIV/AIDS organisation where I was a trustee for a number of years.
Advertising and hospitality experience help me as a therapist
My years spent in advertising, and then setting up and running a hospitality business, are certainly helpful now in my work as a therapist. Clients often tell me that it is one of the main reasons they’ve chosen me as their therapist. Having a business background gives me insight and understanding of the world of work outside of the therapy room.
After my advertising years, I took a degree in hotel and catering management and managed restaurants before setting up my own outside catering company in Soho. I catered functions for film companies, advertising agencies and PR companies. They enjoyed, as I did, the link between my advertising career and my new one. This is understandable, as we all tend to prefer to make connections with people who we believe will identify with us and empathise with our needs.
Read more about my background and my Therapy, Counselling, Psychotherapy and Coaching qualifications.
Working With City lawyers in the heart of London
Having been in practice in the City for 15 years and working with clients from professions prolific in the area, I have learned the mechanisms of different professions indeed, Lawyers, barristers and QCs are my biggest client group.
- City law firms specialist areas:
- The pressure that lawyers are under for billable hours
- The sales aspect of the job
- Hard slogging through the initial PQE years
- Toughing it out as a senior associate
- Navigating the road to partnership – and the unique problems and challenges that partnership brings
Every stage creates enormous demands – on home life, relationships, physical health as well as emotional and psychological wellbeing.
What are the most common issues for therapy and counselling?
The issues I work with are wide-ranging but there are particular concerns that I am very frequently consulted upon. Here are couple of them:
Imposter Syndrome
Imposter Syndrome is feeling like a fake or fraud at work and believing that any day you will be exposed or found out. It’s the voice in your head telling you that you are not good enough, you are fooling everyone, you are not that talented, your success is mostly down to luck and that others wouldn’t accept the ‘real you’.
Imposter Syndrome is most prevalent in highly competitive environments such as the City of London. Research shows that 70% of people will feel like a fraud at some point in their lives and that two out of five successful people suffer from feelings of inadequacy.
To have some self-doubt is natural and it can help you strive to be better. However, when you are full of criticism for yourself, it affects your confidence, your personal and professional progress and creates little joy or sense of achievement.
If this sounds familiar to you, do get in touch as this is such an uncomfortable way to live and it can be overcome.
Overwhelm
In a high-pressure work environment such as The City, some stress can help you to focus, meet deadlines and give you an edge. When stress is relentless, combined with long hours and a demanding travel schedule, problems can arise.
Some classic signs of overwhelm are feeling drained, mentally exhausted and less able to cope; rushing all the time with no time for yourself; feeling irritable or tearful and relationships suffer; sleep problems; digestive problems; tightness in the throat or chest; palpitations; dizziness and anxiety/panic attacks.
We can become overwhelmed when we take on too much or life throws too much at us. Please don’t ignore the warning signs I’ve mentioned and try to push through as that doesn’t work long-term. Get in touch and we can start to work on how to manage and recover from overwhelm.
Counselling, Therapy, Coaching and Psychotherapy
In addition to the aforementioned there’s also the wider scope of helping Foreign Nationals and working with Charities for coaching and Relationship help, to Bereavement, Crisis, Childhood abuse, Domestic Abuse and general Sexuality, Health and Retirement advice and counselling.