Reclaiming your life from avoidance, fear responses, and the anxiety that holds you back.
You know the feeling. The tightening in your chest when you think about driving on the motorway. The way your stomach drops when someone suggests a social gathering. The elaborate routes you plan to avoid that one road, that one bridge, that one situation. Perhaps it is dogs, or flying, or lifts, or medical appointments. Perhaps it is something you feel embarrassed to even name out loud because you know, rationally, that the danger is not real. But your body does not care about rational. Your body has decided this thing is a threat, and it will do everything in its power to keep you away from it.
What starts as avoiding one specific situation has a way of spreading. You stop driving on certain roads, then you stop driving long distances altogether. You turn down invitations, then you stop being invited. You cancel the dentist appointment, then the doctor, then the check-up you really should not have missed. The world gets smaller, and the frustration grows, because you can see exactly what is happening but you cannot seem to stop it. The exhaustion of constant vigilance, of always scanning for the thing you fear, of always having an exit strategy, is something that people who have not experienced it rarely understand. It is tiring to be afraid all the time.
If any of this sounds familiar, I want you to know that you are not weak, you are not broken, and you are certainly not alone. Fear-based difficulties are among the most common reasons people seek therapy, and they are also among the most treatable.
Although people often use the words interchangeably, anxiety, fear and phobias are slightly different experiences, and understanding the differences can be helpful in making sense of what you are going through.
Generalised anxiety is that persistent, hard-to-pin-down sense of worry that something bad is going to happen. It is not always attached to a specific situation. It can feel like a low hum of dread running through your days, making it difficult to relax, sleep, or concentrate. You might worry about health, work, relationships, money, or simply have a vague sense that things are not okay without being able to say exactly why.
Specific phobias involve an intense, disproportionate fear of a particular thing or situation. Spiders, heights, needles, vomiting, enclosed spaces, flying, dogs, blood, storms. The list is almost endless because the brain can attach a fear response to virtually anything. What defines a phobia is that the level of fear is far beyond what the actual danger warrants, and the person usually knows this, which only adds to the frustration.
Social anxiety centres on a deep fear of being judged, humiliated, or negatively evaluated by others. It can make everyday interactions feel like walking through a minefield. Speaking up in meetings, making phone calls, eating in front of people, or even walking into a room can feel overwhelming.
Health anxiety involves a fixation on the possibility of being seriously ill. Normal bodily sensations are interpreted as signs of something dangerous, and reassurance from doctors provides only temporary relief before the worry returns.
Agoraphobia is often misunderstood as simply a fear of open spaces. In reality, it is a fear of being in situations where escape feels difficult or help would not be available if you panicked. It can lead people to avoid public transport, queues, crowds, or eventually leaving the house at all.
What all of these experiences have in common is that the brain's threat detection system has become overly sensitive. It is doing its job, trying to keep you safe, but it has calibrated the alarm too high. It is firing warnings in situations where no real danger exists.
I draw on several therapeutic approaches when working with anxiety, fear and phobias, and I tailor the work to what feels right for you and your particular experience.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is particularly effective for phobias and anxiety that are rooted in past experiences. Many phobias can be traced back to a single frightening event, a bad experience with a dog as a child, a turbulent flight, a panic attack in a supermarket. That memory gets stored in the brain in a way that keeps it feeling present and vivid, and the brain continues to react as though the danger is still happening. EMDR helps the brain reprocess that memory so it loses its emotional charge. Clients are often surprised by how quickly a phobia can shift once the underlying memory has been properly processed.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) helps identify and challenge the thought patterns that maintain the fear cycle. When we are anxious, our thinking becomes distorted. We overestimate danger and underestimate our ability to cope. CBT provides practical tools to recognise these patterns and gradually change them, breaking the cycle of avoidance that keeps the fear alive.
Person-centred therapy provides the safe, trusting relationship that is the foundation of all therapeutic work. Sometimes fear and anxiety are not just about the specific thing we are afraid of. They can be connected to deeper feelings of vulnerability, past experiences of not feeling safe, or parts of ourselves that need to be heard and understood. A warm, non-judgemental therapeutic relationship creates the conditions for this deeper exploration.
I want to be clear about something: this work is not about forcing you to confront your fears before you are ready. There is no flooding, no being pushed into situations that terrify you. It is about helping your nervous system gradually learn that it is safe, at a pace that respects where you are right now.
For many people dealing with anxiety and phobias, online therapy is not just a convenient alternative to face-to-face work. It can actually be preferable. If you experience social anxiety, the thought of sitting in a waiting room with strangers can be enough to put you off seeking help altogether. If agoraphobia is part of your experience, leaving the house may feel impossible on some days. If driving anxiety is the issue, having to drive to a therapist's office is obviously counterproductive.
Online therapy removes these barriers. You are in your own home, in your own safe environment, surrounded by the things that help you feel grounded. There is no unfamiliar building to navigate, no journey to worry about, no small talk with a receptionist. You simply open your laptop or phone and you are there.
I have found that clients working with fear and anxiety often settle into online sessions more quickly than they would in a consulting room. Being in a familiar, comfortable space can help the nervous system feel safer from the very first session, which means the therapeutic work can begin sooner and sometimes progress faster.
We go at your pace, always. In our early sessions, the focus is on building trust and safety between us. I want to understand your experience fully, not just what you are afraid of, but how it affects your daily life, your relationships, your sense of yourself. We will explore the history of the fear together and I will explain how the approaches I use might help, so you always understand what we are doing and why.
There is no pressure to move faster than feels comfortable. Some clients come in wanting to tackle their phobia head-on and are ready to begin EMDR within the first few sessions. Others need more time to feel safe and to build the resources they need before approaching the fear directly. Both are completely valid, and I will follow your lead.
Sessions are £70, last 50 minutes, and take place online via secure video. For specific phobias, many clients notice significant shifts within 6 to 12 sessions. More complex anxiety, particularly where multiple fears are present or where the anxiety is rooted in long-standing patterns, typically takes longer. I will always be honest with you about what I think the work involves, and we will regularly review how things are going together.
If fear and avoidance are shrinking your world, therapy can help you understand what is driving the fear and gradually reclaim the freedom you have lost.
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