Experience and areas of work

I have worked in a range of settings, including university counselling services, a drug and alcohol charity, low-cost therapy services and private practice. I have also volunteered at The Listening Place, supporting people experiencing suicidal thoughts and feelings.

People come to therapy for many different reasons, and these can often be connected. Some areas I have worked with include:

• Emotional difficulties — anxiety, panic, depression, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

• Relationships, loss and life transitions — family dynamics, romantic relationships and friendships, estrangement and separation, bereavement and other forms of loss, and periods of change or uncertainty.

• Trauma and abuse — experiences of abuse, violence and neglect, including sexual assault, and how these may affect our relationships, sense of self and everyday life.

• Substance use — exploring alcohol, drug and other substance use, including experiences of dependence or addiction.

• Sexuality, gender and intimacy — questions of sexuality, gender identity, intimacy and different relationship styles and structures, including polyamory and consensual non-monogamy.

• Neurodivergence and disability — navigating a world that is not always designed with your needs in mind.

• Work, class and financial insecurity — unemployment and work-related difficulties, financial worries, and the impact of class and social or economic inequality.

• Identity, culture and belonging —exploring how race, ethnicity, culture, religion and language shape our sense of who we are and where we belong, and how discrimination, exclusion and marginalisation may affect us.

From Musician to Therapist

Before training as a therapist, I worked as a classical pianist, combining concert performance with private teaching and work at a conservatoire. Music was a profound source of solace, giving me a way to express feelings and process experiences that I could not always understand or put into words.

In many ways, therapy offered something similar: a space where complex experiences could be explored, while also providing something that music alone could not — the possibility of working through them with another person, in ways that changed not only how I understood myself and my life, but also how I felt day to day.

My own experience of therapy was an important part of what led me to train as a therapist. I wanted to develop the skills, knowledge and understanding to offer others the kind of support I had once received myself.

Between two cultures

I grew up in Poland and moved to the UK as an agdult. Living between different cultural contexts has shaped how I understand identity, home and belonging.

I know from my own life what it can mean to hold two cultures at once: to feel at home in neither fully, or in both differently. This has made me particularly attentive to what it can be like to move between cultures, languages or communities, and to carry more than one sense of home within you.

Training and qualifications

I hold a Level 7 Diploma in Integrative Counselling from the Minster Centre, one of the UK’s longest-established and leading training institutes for integrative psychotherapy and counselling.

I’m a Registered Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and practice in accordance with its Ethical Framework.

I’m also completing an MA and Advanced Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy and Counselling at the Minster Centre and Middlesex University. Alongside this, I’m working towards accreditation with the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP).