Kathleen Rao

I believe that every individual is an expert on themselves and that my role as your therapist is to help you feel confident and comfortable in that expertise. It is so common, now more than ever, for people to feel lost, to struggle with unresolved trauma, or to seek a deeper understanding of their life. Therapy can provide the safe space to enable an individual to explore these experiences and help to make sense of them. As a therapist I strongly believe in the power of the relationship. I base my work on building trust and an alliance with my clients, to make sure they feel safe, contained, and comfortable in our space. As a person, I know how daunting it can be to go and speak to a stranger about your inner most thoughts and feelings. With this in mind, I aim to show empathy, warmth, but most of all to meet you person to person in our time together.

I am an insured member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). I have worked within the mental health field for fifteen years, including ten years experience within the NHS (including throughout the Covid 19 pandemic).

I use an integrative model of psychotherapy, meaning I draw on a number of different therapeutic models based on what a client brings to the session. I work with a broad range of presentations, with a personal interest in grief (and complex grief), perinatal and postnatal health (including perinatal complications), long term health conditions, and burn out.

The sessions are very much your space to bring whatever is coming up for you. We will use our initial sessions as a period to get to know one another, so you can make sure you feel comfortable. We will think about your background, where you are in the here and now, and what you might be looking to explore. The most important thing I believe is that the sessions are led by the client, and I will follow wherever you take me and try to help you to make sense of, or explore at a deeper level, whatever might be coming up for you.