What happens in the room.

How would you describe your role in the therapy room?

I help you see what is happening and work with you to formulate what we need to address. I have knowledge and experience of how people function, relate to others and get caught in different patterns, but I cannot know in advance what something means to you in particular.

You are the expert on your story. I bring questions, perspectives and knowledge that can help us put words to what is happening and sometimes try out another way of understanding it. This may involve recurring patterns, defences or other strategies that have developed to protect you or help you deal with something difficult.

Sometimes I am more active and challenging, sometimes more responsive and willing to follow your lead. The way I take up space needs to fit what helps us build a working relationship and alliance and work on the right things. I see myself less as a guide and more as a fellow passenger: I come along, ask questions and take responsibility for my part of the work.

You mention patterns and defences. How do we explore them without being harsh or judgemental?

When we explore defences or other strategies, the starting point is to look at what happens, not to judge you as a person. Patterns and behaviours may have developed to protect you or help you cope with something difficult, and they need to make sense before we try to change them.

We can explore what a strategy gives you in the moment and what it costs over time. Does it help you move towards what matters, or does it help keep anxiety going, increase avoidance or hold other difficulties in place? If a behaviour causes suffering or restricts everyday life, we need to be able to explore it together without making it a measure of who you are.

Sometimes a pattern feels like part of your personality: ‘this is who I am’. Then beginning to explore it can feel like criticism of you as a person. That is why we need to distinguish between who you are and something you have learnt to do, often without a conscious choice.

Behaviours, thought processes and ways of dealing with feelings can be understood and influenced. We can notice a thought without acting on it and feel a feeling without letting it determine every action. The aim is not to remove parts of you, but to increase your freedom to choose how you want to act.

What do you want to help people regain or discover in themselves?

I want to help clients gain more freedom in relation to patterns that feel fixed or almost like part of their personality. Such patterns can be difficult to notice and can start without a conscious decision, but they can often be understood, influenced and changed.

It may mean gaining a meta-perspective: noticing thoughts, feelings and reactions without automatically being drawn into them. Having greater access to your emotional range without needing to push feelings away, and noticing when you start to worry or slip into ruminating.

At its heart, this is about reducing the control such patterns have and increasing your freedom to feel, think and act in more ways.

How does your approach differ from the idea that therapy is mainly about getting things off your chest?

Many people have ideas about what mental ill health is and how much a diagnosis can explain. Diagnoses can be useful starting points, but they do not tell the whole story of a person’s life, relationships or ways of dealing with what has been difficult.

That is why I try to understand difficulties functionally: how they affect everyday life, the contexts in which they arise and what keeps them going. Anxiety can be a protective response. Low mood can be a response to strain, loss or something that has been difficult for a long time.

It is not always the reaction itself that needs to change. The difficulty may be that worrying, ruminating, avoidance or other strategies keep the problems going and restrict what you would like to be able to do. We then explore what you do when the reaction arises, how that affects it and what the consequences are over time.

Therapy therefore begins with a shared problem formulation: what is happening, what keeps it going and what would you like to be able to do differently? From there, we can try other ways of responding, feeling and acting, and follow what changes.

At the same time, being able to talk and be listened to matters. Putting something into words can be part of the work of change. When experiences, feelings and patterns have a language, they become easier to understand and explore together.

How do you usually begin when someone says, ‘I don’t really know what the problem is. I just don’t feel well’?

I begin by asking you to describe what you notice, as concretely as you can at that moment. The description does not need to be finished or carefully thought through.

We can explore whether something in particular happens before the reaction, whether anxiety or low mood arises and how it shows itself in your body and everyday life. It may also involve tiredness, hopelessness or recurring thought processes such as worrying and ruminating.

Then we map out the situations in which the difficulties arise, how they affect everyday life and what you tend to do when they come. Sometimes the suffering is clear before it has taken a clear shape.

An important part of therapy may then be to formulate together what is happening, what keeps the difficulties going and what you would like to be different. The problem formulation does not need to be finished all at once; we can adjust it as we understand more.

What would you like to say to someone who is unsure about starting therapy?

It’s entirely reasonable to hesitate. You don’t need to have made up your mind or be able to describe exactly what you’d like help with before getting in touch.

You can book a 15-minute introductory phone call. A free call about practical arrangements, format and possible next steps. It is not therapy, a clinical assessment or crisis support. If there are no times available in the calendar, you can ask for a time through the contact page and I’ll arrange one. If you’d rather write, use the contact page.

If you’d like to read up first, you can ask the AI assistant on the homepage about Kaddio, fees, appointments, how I work or the website’s content. It doesn’t replace personal contact or provide an individual assessment.

If you book a first therapy session, you don’t need to decide beforehand whether to continue. We can use the session to begin understanding what you’re seeking help with and whether we can build a working relationship and alliance and work on the right things.

How might someone notice that therapy is beginning to help?

It varies. Change does not have to mean that you always feel happy or calm. I sometimes describe it as the mind beginning to move: you understand more of what is happening and see things you previously did automatically.

You may begin to notice which situations trigger a reaction, which thought processes, defences or other strategies are activated and what their consequences are. That makes it possible to try other ways of responding, feeling and acting.

When this happens, your agency can grow: your ability to influence, choose and act. In everyday life, you might notice it when you set a boundary, make a decision, stay with a feeling, spend less time worrying or ruminating, or approach something you have previously avoided.

What we follow depends on the problem formulation and what you want to change. We need to keep exploring whether the work helps in everyday life and adjust it if it does not.

You work with MCT and ISTDP. How do you use them in therapy?

I use MCT and ISTDP to notice different aspects of what we are exploring. The starting point is the problem formulation we develop together and how the work unfolds.

MCT can help us see how worrying, ruminating, attempts at control or the way attention is directed keep problems going. ISTDP can help us explore feelings, anxiety and defences as they appear in the moment and in the relationship. These processes are often connected.

What matters is that we work on what you are seeking help with and that you can understand why I suggest a particular way of working. We follow what actually changes and adjust the work together.

You are the one doing the work of change. My task is to bring questions, perspectives and knowledge that can help you notice patterns, try something different and gain more room to act.

What does a good therapeutic relationship mean to you, in concrete terms, in the room?

For me, a good therapeutic relationship means that we can build a working alliance and work towards goals that matter to you. We formulate together what to work on. My responsibility is to keep track of whether we are doing the right things, whether the work is helping and whether the direction needs adjusting.

I want there to be enough safety for you to take up space, question things and disagree. We may misunderstand each other, come into conflict or see things differently. What matters is not that this never happens, but that we can pause, try to understand and repair what has become difficult.

Transparency matters to me. I want to share how I understand what is happening and why I suggest a particular approach, without getting ahead of you. You should be able to ask questions, react and influence the work.

Is there anything about therapy that might be unexpected at first?

One thing may be that what we are trying to understand does not only appear when you talk about life outside the room. Defences or other strategies for protecting yourself, seeking safety, holding back or handling uncertainty can also become visible in the relationship between us.

It may show in how you respond to a question, what becomes difficult to say, when you withdraw, adapt to me, become afraid of disappointing me or hope I will understand without your needing to express anything. This is not a fault in you, but information that can help us understand how the pattern works.

The therapy room is a particular, bounded situation, not the same as other relationships. Precisely because of this, we can sometimes slow down, explore what is happening and try other ways of being in contact.

At the same time, I need to remain open to the possibility that what happens may also be due to how I act or to a misunderstanding between us. We explore it together rather than assuming that everything is a pattern in you.

What makes you curious in your work with different people?

What makes me curious is the self: the person themselves and the way they try to live, understand and protect themselves in their situation.

When we make worrying, ruminating, defences and other strategies visible together, it can become easier to distinguish between who you are and things you have learnt to do. Those strategies may have served an important purpose and need to be understood, not simply removed.

I am curious about what gets more room when the strategies no longer have as much control: feelings, needs, relationships, interests and ways of acting. Not as a hidden, fully formed self to be dug out, but as something that can become clearer and continue to develop.

A strong motivation for me is helping other people’s potential find expression and seeing them become freer to be themselves. It is not about finding a finished answer to who you are, but about exploring together what becomes possible when you have more room to act.

How would you like the therapy room to feel?

I want my practice and the therapy room to feel warm, honest and transparent.

There should be room for what is difficult. Therapy is not always comfortable, and it does not need to be. But I also want the room to feel powerful and hopeful. Like a place where something can actually begin to change.

What would you never want therapy with you to become?

I do not want therapy to become a place where old wounds are repeated without our understanding what is happening.

My responsibility is to notice when something in the process risks feeling overbearing, unclear or too fast. Therapy can be challenging, but it should not be based on pushing you past yourself.

If there is friction between us, we need to be able to pause, talk about it and understand it together. That is part of the work: not just continuing forwards, but also being able to repair, adjust and find safety again in the process.

What would you like to characterise your tone and the way you meet people?

Listening is a core skill for me. I try to hear both what is said clearly and what is still difficult to put into words, without deciding in advance what something means.

I want to be warm, clear and transparent. That means sharing how I understand what is happening, asking when I am unsure and being prepared to change my understanding when something does not fit.

Methods and structures should support the work, but not replace the encounter. What matters is that we can formulate what is at stake, work on the right things and follow what changes.

That does not mean the work has no structure. The problem formulation, goals and follow-up need to be clear, but they are shaped and adjusted in dialogue.

If a client were to describe you after a few months of therapy, what would you hope they said?

I hope they would describe me as transparent, honest, warm and caring.

Not perfect, and not someone who is always right, but someone you can really talk to. Someone who listens, tries to understand and also has the courage to be clear when needed.

What do you hope someone takes away from a first therapy session with you?

I hope you feel listened to and that we’ve begun to understand what you’re seeking help with. We don’t need to agree on everything or have a finished problem formulation after a first therapy session.

A first therapy session doesn’t need to solve anything. It can give an initial picture of what is happening, what keeps the difficulties going and what you’d like to be different. Sometimes it leaves you with more questions than answers, and that can also be an important beginning.

I hope something has begun to move: that what felt stuck has become a little easier to explore and that you have a clearer sense of whether and how we can continue working together. If the session leaves you more worried or something feels wrong, you need to be able to say that too.

What would you like to say directly to someone who is thinking about getting in touch but hesitating?

You don’t need to have put everything into words or be certain that therapy is right. If you have a question, are curious or feel that it’s a big step, you can get in touch first.

You can book a 15-minute introductory phone call or write through the contact page. A free call about practical arrangements, format and possible next steps. It is not therapy, a clinical assessment or crisis support. You can ask about how I work, Kaddio, what a first therapy session involves or what might be a reasonable next step.

If you’d like to read up first, you can ask the AI assistant on the homepage about practical matters and the website’s content. Personal contact is still there when you want to take the next step.

No questions are off limits.