About me

I'm Jamie, a UKCP registered integrative child and adolescent psychotherapist. I work with children, young people and their families across London.

When I work with a child, I start from the understanding that they already know what they are going through. What they often lack is a way to say it. Children rarely arrive able to name their distress in the language adults expect, but that does not mean the distress is unclear to them. My work as a child and adolescent psychotherapist is to help them find a way to express it, whether that is through words, play, or images, so it can be shared rather than held alone.

Children do not exist in isolation, so I work closely with each child's family and, where it helps, with their school. An important part of child and adolescent therapy is helping the adults around a child understand what the child is going through and how to support them. When the adults in a child or young person’s life respond in a steady, consistent way, the child has something reliable to lean on. Getting that consistency across all the systems they inhabit matters as much as anything that happens in the room with me. My ultimate goal for therapy is that the child or young person builds an internal resilience, but resilience can only be established if those around the child or young person feel strong and resilient themselves. However, for so many parents and carers, the pressures of everyday life leave little capacity to be that steady, consistent and resilient person they would like to be. This is why I put an emphasis on supporting those around the child and young person as well.

I came to this work in 2017, after a career in the music industry as a tour and production manager. When I decided to retrain, I never considered specialising in anything other than work with children and young people. Their wellbeing and their rights have mattered to me for as long as I can remember.

While training, I volunteered with Care Free Kids in Walthamstow, a charity providing non-directive play therapy in local schools, and with Every Parent and Child in Enfield, mentoring in primary schools. I spent a year alongside the Waltham Forest CAMHS team, which gave me a real understanding of how NHS referral and care pathways work. Since qualifying I have worked in state and independent schools and across therapeutic services in London, as a psychotherapist and therapeutic lead, alongside multidisciplinary teams and agencies including CAMHS and social services.

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