Trauma is at the heart of much of the work I do - not always the dramatic, single-event trauma that is easiest to name, but also the quieter, cumulative kind: the adverse childhood experiences, the difficult family systems, the losses and violations that layer over time into something that shapes a whole life. I work with adult survivors of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, with people who have survived closed or controlling environments, and with those living with complex PTSD. Trauma can come to feel like the defining story of a person - but it is hardly ever the only story. Understanding it - coming to that understanding together, in the presence of someone attuned and steady - is often what allows patients to begin to live differently.

I also work with eating disorders, and have done for many years. For some patients the eating disorder can feel permanent, woven into who they are - particularly where it sits alongside perfectionism, as it so often does. Psychodynamic work helps us understand where the disorder came from and what it has been doing for the person. As patients come to integrate hidden or unwanted parts of themselves, the need for the eating disorder tends, gradually, to dissolve.