My Approach

Donna offers a deeply reflective therapeutic space, allowing for the opportunity to safely explore painful challenges such as anxiety and depression, relationship conflicts and maladaptive thoughts and behaviours. The co-creative experience over time can help to expand personal insight leading to a deeper connection with oneself and improved relationships with others.

Donna's practice methods are informed by psychodynamic relational and developmental psychology, psychoanalysis, neuroscience, humanistic and existential philosophy. She is particularly interested in family systems and patterns of attachment behaviours, which if not nurtured can cause a feeling of disconnection from oneself and others.

Donna is particularly interested in how unprocessed trauma or prolonged stress can affect the nervous system and neurological functioning and how these factors can feed into family and relational functioning.

Holding a Grade 8 in classical violin, Donna is also deeply interested in the therapeutic power of music. She appreciates an eclectic range of musicality, bringing music and creativity in her work where appropriate. Whilst understanding how music can help with self-expression, Donna also holds space for some of the more challenging themes around performance anxiety, often resulting from a perfection-driven culture.

Donna is also holds a love of animals and the natural world. She believes both can steer us towards inner healing by expanding the understanding we have of ourselves if we are curious and still enough to connect to their innate wisdom.

About Me

Donna is an experienced integrative psychotherapist and counsellor, initially training in the field of Transactional Analysis with the Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy in the early 1990's. She also holds an MA in Integrative Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy and Counselling with Terapia/Middlesex University.  

Donna is also a qualified social worker, experienced in working with vulnerable families, adults and young people from a wide range of diverse cultural and social backgrounds. Her statutory experience with the NHS community mental health team and front-line child protection teams gave her a robust understanding of risk/assessment, service delivery and safeguarding knowledge which feeds into her clinical practice to date. 

Alongside her private practice - which recently included long and short-term psychotherapy for nurseries, schools, and colleges countywide - Donna also works for TTC Sussex snd Surrey, a multi-disciplinary mental health organisation specialising in long-term attachment and trauma-informed work with adoptive families through ASGSF and work with private fee-paying families across parts of the Southeast and Surrey areas. Donna also offers reflective parenting consultations.

I work with

• Children and young people
• Couples
• Families
• Individuals
• Private healthcare referrals

Special Interests

Like all UKCP registered psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors I can work with a wide range of issues, but here are some areas in which I have a special interest or additional experience.

Types of Therapies Offered

• Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist