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So鈥攜ou鈥檙e ready.

Ready to get well.

To stop spinning in circles.

To change, and finally make change that sticks.

And maybe you鈥檙e wondering:

Can someone really help me do this?

Someone strong enough to hold me in my pain,

honest enough to gently reveal what I can鈥檛 yet see,

and kind enough to love and accept me鈥攅ven in my darkest moments?

If that鈥檚 the kind of therapist you鈥檙e looking for, welcome. You鈥檝e found one.

I鈥檓 Dan (he/him), and I鈥檝e spent many years helping people come home to themselves鈥攔ecovering from addiction, trauma, shame, anxiety, and the deep loneliness that often underpins it all.

I believe that much of what keeps us stuck stems from the wounds of childhood鈥攇rowing up in families marked by dysfunction, codependency, or addiction. These experiences shape us. And then, the world tries to sell us endless solutions that don鈥檛 truly heal what hurts.

As a Gay/Queer man in long-term recovery, I don鈥檛 just believe change is possible鈥擨鈥檝e lived it.

I鈥檝e walked through fear, grief, addiction, shame, and hardship.

And I know that healing, recovering and restoring our authentic selves doesn鈥檛 come from quick fixes.

It comes from relationship, from being deeply seen and held as we are鈥攏o masks, no performance.

I鈥檓 here to walk that path with you.

To help you remember who you are beneath the survival strategies.

To support you in doing the work that only you can do鈥攂ut not alone.

There's nobody else out there just like you, so how I will work with you, and how we will work together, won't be identical to how I work with other clients.

I'm mindful of using "therapese" to describe how I work - broadly speaking, the focus is on what's going on in your life at the moment and how you're experiencing that, but we may well need and want to look at how past experiences may be impacting on what's happening now.

I'll also use the relationship between yourself and myself to explore the relationship you have with your own self, with other people in your life, and your relationship with the world in general.

I use this approach and way of working because I know it has worked for me to help shift me out of my own "stuckness" and I've seen it work for others, too.

I support clients with a range of concerns, including:

Anxiety

Depression & feeling sad

Low self-esteem & low self-confidence

Sham & Toxic Shame

Drug Addiction & Alcoholism

Stress

Bereavement & loss

Loneliness

Anger management

LGBTQ+ counselling

Social Anxiety

Perfectionism

Sex addiction

Gambling addiction

Shopping addiction

If you are curious to learn more or want to book a consultation, please reach out via email, WhatsApp, or text. I aim to respond quickly to enquiries and will generally contact you on the same/next day. 

In our first session together, I will tend to ask more questions about you, your story and what brings you to therapy.

Sessions afterwards will then be a space for you to bring whatever you wish to bring to that session.

I鈥檓 Dan (he/him) and I specialise in working with addictions, codependency and LGBTQ+ mental health and have spent many years helping people come home to themselves鈥攔ecovering from addiction, trauma, shame, anxiety, and the deep loneliness that often underpins it all.

I believe that much of what keeps us stuck stems from the wounds of childhood鈥攇rowing up in families marked by dysfunction, codependency, or addiction. These experiences shape us. And then, the world tries to sell us endless solutions that don鈥檛 truly heal what hurts.

As a Gay/Queer man in long-term recovery, I don鈥檛 just believe change is possible鈥擨鈥檝e lived it.

And I know that healing, recovering and restoring our authentic selves doesn鈥檛 come from quick fixes.

It comes from relationship, from being deeply seen and held as we are鈥攏o masks, no performance.

I鈥檓 here to walk that path with you.

To help you remember who you are beneath the survival strategies.

To support you in doing the work that only you can do鈥攂ut not alone.

I鈥檓 not going to just sit and listen and expect you to do all the work, though - I鈥檓 going to ask plenty of questions to help you and I make sense of everything. And don鈥檛 be surprised by some gentle challenging from me if I sense that there are blind spots that you may need to look at and address to keep moving forwards.

In addition to looking at what鈥檚 going on in your life today, we鈥檙e going to have to get our hands a little dirty and do some digging around in your past and in your childhood to get clear away the debris and reveal the bedrock upon which you can build a solid foundation. 

The foundation of knowing who you truly are, what makes you 鈥渢ick鈥�. A foundation to build the rest of your life on.

A foundation that will give you the confidence and security to go out in to the world knowing that there鈥檚 something terribly 鈥渞ight鈥� with you.

I spent years running away from and avoiding the parts of myself that I couldn鈥檛 bear, the parts that left me feeling that there was something terribly 鈥渨rong鈥� with me, but covering it up with masks to make it look to the outside world that I had it all together.

I used to be stuck in a constant anxiety loop, always over-worrying, too often finding myself paralysed by indecision. 

I used to hate myself and I鈥檇 constantly talk to myself in ways I鈥檇 never talk to my best friend.

My boundaries were all over the place and I either allowed others to take advantage of me, or they were an impenetrable wall.

And to deal with all that, and all the rest of is, I turned to drugs and alcohol to self-medicate. Which worked, until it no longer did鈥�

And I've been at the place where perhaps you are now, knowing something needs to change, but not sure what and what it will look like.

Today, though, I'm out no longer lost in the maze and I know a way out.

I know how it is to get 鈥渦nstuck鈥� and to change.

To no longer have to use drugs/alcohol, to feel empowered rather than powerless.

To not feel ruled by anxiety.

To feel hope and joy, to connect with other people and have intimate relationships.

To not be crippled by shame but instead an inner sense of peace and self-acceptance.

To better know my wants and needs and be able to communicate those to others.

To esteem myself rather than look to others to do that for me.

To be a gay/queer man who can look the world in the eye and feel proud of who he is.

To let my authentic personality shine, rather than the survival personalities of the past.

I know that you鈥檙e not going to walk through the door to our first session and be ready to show all of who you are and to share the deepest, darkest parts of you and your story. And that鈥檚 perfectly okay - it takes time to build trust in a relationship and to feel safe enough. But as you begin to reveal yourself to me, you鈥檒l experience how it is to say those things you鈥檝e never been able to say. How it is to not feel, and be, judged as 鈥渓ess than鈥�. To feel understood. To be seen, heard and held. To experience someone not running away from you, but drawing closer to you as you become your full amazing and wondrous self.

If you're tired of being stuck in endlessly repeating patterns, reach out to me via email or WhatsApp and let's get working on getting you unstuck. 

In booking your first session, there's no commitment required to then book further sessions. It's a chance for you to let me know what brings you to therapy, what you'd like to work on and to get a sense of who I am and how I can help.