People don’t just need coping. They need their nervous system to learn that they can be safe, seen, have needs, and still belong.

My work is grounded in the understanding that our emotional lives, nervous systems, and relationships with food and our bodies are deeply interconnected. Many struggles that show up as anxiety, compulsive patterns, or self-criticism are adaptive survival responses shaped by experience, biology, and context.

A relational, trauma-informed, and neuroscience-based approach.

This means we work not only with thoughts and behaviours, but with evidence-based nervous system patterns that influence regulation, craving, attachment, and self-perception. Therapy is collaborative and paced, with close attention to safety, curiosity, and consent.

Life isn't about avoiding pain, it's about learning how to carry it without losing sight of what matters most. Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), I help clients develop greater emotional flexibility, make space for difficult experiences, and reconnect with the values, relationships, and goals that give life meaning.

I also approach what you want to talk about with curiosity rather than assumptions. Instead of focusing on what is “wrong” with you, we explore what it is like to be you, helping you better understand your thoughts, emotions, body sensations, and experiences without judgement.

I work at the intersection of nervous-system safety, identity, and meaningful change.

Many high-functioning people can articulate their struggles, yet still feel stuck in shame, self-doubt, or imposter syndrome. Together, we map how your symptoms make sense - often as protective adaptations to experiences where belonging or worth felt conditional. Using an integrative approach, we support stabilization, deepen processing, and help you reclaim an internal locus of control. The goal isn’t just coping - it’s integration: feeling more like yourself, with steadier self-trust and more space to live.

I focus on relational trauma, anxiety, burnout, career change concerns, food addiction, emotional eating, and body image.

Rather than framing these difficulties as problems to control or eliminate, we explore how and why they developed, what they protect against, and how new forms of regulation and self-trust can be cultivated. This work often involves gently separating physiological drives from emotional needs, reducing shame, and building more compassionate and flexible responses over time.

Polyvagal and somatic techniques can be used to support nervous system regulation and embodied awareness.

If you feel chronically on edge, disconnected from your body, or caught in cycles of reactivity or shutdown these techniques can help. By working with sensations, movement, breath, and cues of safety, we support regulation from the bottom up — helping the body learn that it is safe.

At Cultivae Psychotherapy, the aim is not to override parts of yourself, but to create the conditions in which steadier regulation, clarity, and agency can emerge.

‘Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom’ - Victor Frankl