About me

Hello, I'm Jamie, a UKCP registered integrative child and adolescent psychotherapist.

When I work with a child, I start from the assumption 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 is to help them find a form for it, whether that is words, play, or images, so it can be shared rather than held alone.

I follow the child's lead and stay with what they bring to each session, rather than steering them toward what I have decided the problem is. Trust builds when a child senses they are not being managed or corrected, and that is the foundation everything else is built on.

I also work systemically, because a child does not exist in isolation and neither does their distress. So, I work with the family, and where it helps, with the child's school. Children move between homes, classrooms and relationships every day, and when the adults around them hold a consistent, thought-through approach, the child has something steady to lean on. Getting that consistency across the systems a child lives in matters as much as anything that happens in the room with me.

I came to this work in 2017, after working in 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 close understanding of how NHS referral and pathways actually work. Since then I have worked in state and independent schools and across therapeutic services in London, as a psychotherapist and as a therapeutic lead, alongside multidisciplinary teams and external agencies including CAMHS and social services. I have also worked as part of the core teaching staff at the Terapia Centre in Finchley.