I spent ten years working full-time as a psychotherapist in the NHS, in both primary and tertiary mental health services.

In primary care I worked with anxiety, depression, panic, bereavement and relationship difficulties. In tertiary care I assessed and worked with people experiencing more serious and enduring conditions, including bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, major depression, personality disorders, schizophrenia, PTSD and eating disorders, as well as the effects of serious trauma and abuse.

I worked alongside many different professionals, including psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, GPs, community mental health teams and social workers.

This experience taught me that people's difficulties rarely fit neatly into categories. People with the same diagnosis can have very different histories, relationships and circumstances. Equally, people without a clinical diagnosis can experience profound distress.

Understanding someone requires more than identifying symptoms or applying a familiar explanation. It calls for curiosity, clinical judgement, intellectual independence and a willingness to look carefully at their experience and circumstances. Similar difficulties can have very different meanings and origins.

It also taught me the importance of recognising when psychotherapy may not be the best form of help.

I work with adults experiencing a wide range of difficulties, including trauma and complex trauma, anxiety and depression, relationship and attachment difficulties, persistent emotional struggles, questions of identity, self-loathing, loss and a persistent sense of unease.

Some people come to me with a particular problem. Others have tried different therapies, received a diagnosis, or learned to function well despite difficulties that remain unresolved.

I work collaboratively and interactively, rather than simply listening, summarising and offering reassurance. Depending on what we discover, therapy may be relatively short and focused, or involve deeper exploration of personal history, relationships, trauma, sense of self and ways of living.

I use a variety of methods, but do not allow a particular model or technique to dictate how I work. My approach is human, unpretentious and plain-speaking. Psychotherapy can involve difficult things, but it need not be formal, mysterious or unnecessarily complicated.

I am also concerned about the increasingly technocratic way in which psychological difficulties can be understood and treated. There is a tendency to classify distress and then select a treatment, as though human suffering were a technical problem with a ready-made solution. But people are not machines, and similar symptoms can have very different origins and meanings. I believe people need to be understood in the context of their own lives, rather than fitted to a predetermined explanation or treatment.

Throughout my life I have been influenced by existential philosophy and its willingness to question how we live as human beings within the world around us. We often conform against our better nature, accept the unacceptable as normal, and remain silent to avoid upsetting others, being rejected or losing opportunities.

Existential enquiry questions the idea that society's definition of normality should be the measure of the individual.

Our difficulties with self-esteem, anxiety and mental stability do not develop in isolation, as though they were glitches in a computer. They are shaped by our relationships, past experiences, adverse circumstances and the wider society in which we live.

We may learn to suppress ourselves to fit in, and adapt to adverse family dynamics, relationship tensions, cultural expectations, stressful workplaces, economic pressures and events beyond our control. These influences affect how we feel, understand ourselves and live from day to day.

Existential Analysis is concerned not only with our thoughts and preoccupations, but with what it means to live. It asks whether our lives are being shaped by our own truths, principles and needs, or by forces we have not recognised or questioned.

This makes personal awareness and authenticity central to our development: recognising what genuinely matters to us and distinguishing it from what we may have been led to believe is true, right or good. From there, we can take greater responsibility for how we live, guided by conscience, integrity and personal agency.

Existential Analysis also explores questions of meaning, values, purpose and mortality, and what these mean for the choices we make in the present. It considers our needs for freedom, security and belonging, particularly when these are challenged by the world around us. For some people, it also raises questions of spirituality and their place within a wider understanding of life.

Existential enquiry is therefore about more than techniques for changing how we think or feel. It is concerned with the quality and meaning of our lives, work and relationships, and the degree of truth, purpose and passion in the way we live.