Counselling, coaching and psychotherapy in central Bristol, BS1, for ADHD, dyslexia and other neurodiversities
An individual approach to ADHD, AuDHD and other neurodiversities (NDs)
People usually arrive at my practice because standard explanations for ADHD and other neurodiversities have stopped being useful.
You may have a diagnosis, a prescription, a stack of strategies — and still feel stuck, misunderstood or quietly exhausted by the effort of managing yourself. Alternatively, you might arrive without a diagnosis but with a long-standing sense that your attention, emotional life, procrastinating patterns or aspects of your thinking have never quite fitted.
My work begins at this point: when symptom-based accounts and standardised treatments no longer capture what you are actually living.
I work with adults who are diagnosed, self-identified, questioning or simply trying to make sense of patterns that have shaped life over time.
What brings people to work with me
You may come to see me with:
- persistent difficulties with attention, procrastination or follow-through
- emotional overwhelm, anxiety, shutdown or volatility
- shame, self-criticism or a sense of chronic underachievement
- relationship difficulties, misattunement or repeated conflict
- the impact of a later-life diagnosis on identity and self-understanding
- experiences of being overlooked or misdiagnosed.
For some adults, ADHD and other NDs can contribute to patterns of compulsive sexual behaviours or difficulties in regulating sexual urges, and therapy can help explore these in a non‑judgemental, relational way.
Some people arrive with multiple diagnoses, some with none. What matters is not the label, but how your experiences are lived and how they shape your inner life and relationships.
How I work with ADHD
I work as a thoroughly modern therapist, drawing on multiple ways of understanding and working with neurodivergence: from contemporary neuroscience to developmental and relational psychology, systems thinking and meaning-oriented approaches – alongside traditional psychotherapeutic attention to depth, history and relationship.
This is not CBT-for-ADHD and it is not a standardised approach. The work is relational, reflective and collaborative. Some people experience the work primarily as therapy, others engage in a coaching format, and for many it sits somewhere in between — often shifting depending on what is most helpful. I am interested in understanding patterns over time rather than forcing change before there is understanding.
Rather than positioning myself as an expert applying techniques to a problem, I work alongside you as a thinking partner — helping you develop a clearer relationship to your attention, emotion, behaviour and inner world.
ADHD as a way of being, not a set of deficits
ADHD is not simply a problem of attention. It shapes how you regulate emotion, how motivation rises and falls, how time is experienced, how shame takes root and how relationships are formed and strained. Creativity, intensity, curiosity and sensitivity often sit alongside difficulty and emotional cost.
AuDHD, dyslexia and other neurodivergences may form part of your picture — sometimes visibly, sometimes in ways that have been masked, compensated for or misread over many years.
My work is concerned with how your neurotype developed within particular relational, educational and cultural contexts and how strategies that once enabled survival or success can later become constraining or punishing.
The limits of the medical model
For decades, the medical model has been the dominant way of understanding what we now call ADHD (and ADD). It has helped some people, particularly through medication.
However, for many neurodivergent people, the medical model has also become part of the problem. It often fails to provide the kinds of help, inputs or answers you are actually looking for — narrowing complex developmental, relational and cultural experiences into symptoms to be managed.
Neurodiversity is not a flaw, nor is it an illness; what harms people is the strain of surviving in a world unwilling to understand or accommodate the ways their minds naturally work.
Supporting executive function and emotional regulation
In my work I sometimes include gentle neurophysiological strategies, such as cerebellum-based exercises, to support prefrontal cortex (PFC) executive function and amygdala regulation. These approaches aim to strengthen attention, self-regulation and emotional resilience, complementing the reflective and relational work we do together.
Experience and orientation
I have worked with neurodivergent people across a wide range of settings, including higher education, secure units, primary and secondary schools, specialist education contexts and private therapeutic practice. This includes extensive work with adults whose ADHD was recognised later in life, often after years of coping, compensating or being misread.
I am also the founder of Attention Allies: Therapists for ADHD, a Bristol, UK based collective of experienced clinicians providing counselling, psychotherapy, and coaching specifically for adults with ADHD.
Neurodivergence — professional and personal
Neurodivergence is not only a professional interest for me. My own dyslexia (dysorthographia) remained undiagnosed until my undergraduate studies in psychology, philosophy and education and I have neurodivergent family members.
These experiences inform my sensitivity to masking, adaptation, shame and the long-term emotional cost of living in environments that are not built with neurodivergent minds in mind.
Resources
Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS v1.1)
Many people find it useful to complete this twice: once as your natural, uncompensated self, and once as your current, adapted adult self. This often reveals how coping strategies develop over time.
Procrastination and ADHD: The Basics
An exploration of procrastination as a neurological and emotional process rather than a moral failing.
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD)
A discussion of RSD through the lens of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, drawing on self-determination theory.
Current availability
You are welcome to contact me but be aware that my practice is often very busy. I review potential work carefully to ensure a good clinical fit.
I aim to respond to professional enquiries within a week.
