I'm Laura: six years training at a top psychotherapy institute, advanced training in couples therapy, a Master's in Public Policy before that, and my own path through real difficulty: the kind that doesn't come from a textbook.
But none of that is actually why clients stay. They stay because I'm steady. I don't flinch when things get big, I don't rush you towards feeling better, and I won't collapse when you're spiralling. And I won't just nod along and tell you what you want to hear, either. I'm focused on what's useful to you, which means if something needs gently naming, I will name it. That solidity is exactly what lets you be honest in return.
before this work
I spent twenty years across government, charities and the private sector (including developing the NSPCC's strategy for preventing child abuse and neglect), but I was always more drawn to the person in the room than the policy in the room next door.
the training
So I retrained at the Metanoia Institute, completing an MSc in Gestalt Psychotherapy focused on relational depth. It's postgraduate training built around academic rigour and clinical practice. I completed 500 clinical hours before I qualified and went on to specialise in couples therapy following an Advanced Training in Gestalt Couples Therapy. I'm an accredited member of the UK Council for Psychotherapy.
the foundations
Six years of group learning and five years of my own personal therapy built the awareness and steadiness a good therapist needs, and that can't be rushed. It's what lets me go there with you, not just talk around it.
I was born on the Autumn Equinox and embody this balance between light and dark (bit on the nose for a therapist, I know). Able to sit with the darkest thing you've never said out loud × genuinely believing "everything is possible." Resourceful and daring × not afraid to say no the second something doesn't feel right. And it turns out that's the difference my clients often value most of all: I don't skirt around the dark stuff, and I can usually see a way through it before you can.
how i work
Gestalt therapy doesn't treat you as a problem to fix. It recognises your symptoms as survival strategies, not evidence of what's wrong with you. I won't hand you a diagnosis or another coping strategy. Instead, we work with what's actually happening in the room, so you can feel your own needs, understand why the pattern keeps repeating, and find new choices, without needing a breakdown first to justify being here.
I draw on a range of perspectives beyond my psychotherapy training too, including neuroscience, astrology and holistic models of health, all pointing toward the same thing: body, mind and soul finding their way back to balance, and to becoming more fully yourself. This isn't just talking therapy. We work with what's alive in the moment, which is usually more honest than what either of us would say out loud. So you leave with more than insight. You leave with something you've actually felt shift.
This might feel different to therapy you've had before. Talking about what's going on can quietly become its own way of avoiding it, so I work with what's actually happening for you, in the room, not just what you say about it. That's usually when something genuinely starts to shift.
WHEN I'M NOT IN THE THERAPY ROOM, YOU'LL FIND ME crashing through the undergrowth of the Devil's Punch Bowl, Blackdown or Hindhead Common, chasing after Summer (a beagle, nose down, gone) and Skye (a Turkish rescue, best guess: sight hound crossed with something fast and German). A scent hound and a sight hound is, it turns out, a genuinely catastrophic combination for anyone hoping to finish a walk on schedule. I moved to the Surrey Hills for the quiet... which I mostly experience while shouting two dogs' names into a bush.
Ready to pull up a chair?
Email or call, and we'll start with a conversation about what's going on and whether I'm the right fit.