Relationships
Same pattern, different person.
Individual therapy for recurring relationship patterns, difficulty with closeness, loss, and the way you relate to yourself.
What Relational Difficulty Looks Like
You may have noticed it by now, the same dynamic keeps showing up, wearing a different face each time. The partner changes, the friendship changes, the job changes, but the feeling underneath is oddly consistent: not quite being chosen, or choosing people who can't quite meet you, or finding yourself disappearing inside a relationship without meaning to. Maybe you're the one who gives everything and wonders, quietly, why it's never returned in kind. Maybe closeness itself is the difficulty, people get near, and something in you pulls back before you've decided to. Or your relationship with yourself may be shaped by harsh self-criticism or judgement, making it difficult to feel at ease with who you are.
It might show up as the loneliness of being surrounded by people and still feeling unseen by any of them. It might be the aftermath of a divorce or a long relationship ending, and the strange grief of losing not just a person but a version of your future. Or it might simply be a gap you can feel but can't quite name, between the relationships you have and the kind you sense might be possible. Relational patterns are some of the most persistent things we carry. They're also, with the right attention, some of the most transformable.
I offer individual relationship therapy in London Bridge, SE1, and online.
A free 15-minute call is a low-pressure way to find out whether this feels like the right next step.
Prefer to write? Send me a message.
What We Do Here
Relational patterns rarely start where they show up. The way you relate now was shaped early, by the first relationships that taught you what closeness costs, what you had to become to be loved, what happens if you ask for too much or too little. We don't stay in theory about this. We look at what's happening in your relationships now, and we trace it back to where it was first learned, often in the body and the emotions long before it reached the level of thought.
What changes is not just insight. Many people can already describe their pattern accurately. What changes is your relationship to the pattern itself. You start to feel the moment it activates, rather than recognising it only afterwards. Over time, you get more choice in how you respond, not because you forced yourself to behave differently, but because the old need driving it has been met, at least partly, in the room.
Who This Is For
You keep finding yourself stuck in the same relational pattern, even when you can see it clearly.
A marriage or relationship has ended, whether long or short, and you are facing the loss and disruption that follows.
You feel alone and unseen despite having people around you.
Intimacy feels difficult, or you give so much of yourself that little is left.
You are often your own harshest critic, and self-judgement makes it hard to trust yourself.
You sense the kind of relationship you are capable of has not yet arrived.
This work is offered to individuals, not couples.