Individual Work

What is Individual Counselling?

Life can feel heavy, confusing, or stuck at times. Whether you are navigating a specific life crisis, a relationship challenge, a bereavement, or a persistent sense of unease or anxiety, you don't have to carry it alone.

Counselling is a confidential, collaborative space to pause, breathe, and work through what you are experiencing. It is not about being judged, fixed, or given quick-fix advice. Instead, it is a joint venture—two people sitting side by side, working as a team to help you find your footing and move forward.

My job is to help you gain clarity, explore your options, and develop strategies that actually work for your life. For many, simply telling their story in a space where they feel truly heard is the first step toward relief.

What counselling feels like in practice: Confidential • Safe • Trusting • Focused • Down-to-earth • Understanding • progress • Real relief

My Approach: A Friendly, Skilled Companion

I use a client-centred, Adlerian approach. This means you are the expert on your own life. You choose where we direct our attention and what we focus on. My role is to bring my training, psychological insight, and professional experience to bear on your situation as a skilled, compassionate companion.

Every session is flexible, adaptive, and entirely relational. We work at your pace, balancing deep exploration with practical insight.

What Does the Process Look Like?

Therapy usually unfolds across a few natural stages:

    1. Mapping the Territory: Initially, we work together to understand the exact nature of the problem—how, where, and when it shows up, and what your personal experience of it is.

    2. Connecting Inner and Outer Worlds: We look for recurring patterns, themes, and early recollections that continue to cast a shadow on your present life. Sometimes we hold limiting beliefs about self and others which we only become truly aware of through the process of explaining our situation to someone else. Gaining insight here helps bridge the gap between what happened in the past and how you respond today.

    3. Implementing Meaningful Change: Once you have a clear picture of the origins and dynamics of an issue, you are in a much stronger position to make beneficial changes and approach life with renewed confidence. Sometimes, simply expressing what you are carrying brings a powerful sense of cathartic release and personal clarity.

What is Adlerian Therapy?

Alfred Adler had a unique ability in understanding human beings. His insights make working as an Adlerian therapist effective and rewarding, because they give me the confidence to know that whatever you bring, we will be able to use Adlerian Psychology to gain some insight into the nature of what you are facing. It feels a little like going into the therapy room with a cheat-sheet because his ideas explain human experience so well. We all want to feel love, connection and belonging and we all have a part of us that doesn’t feel confident or good enough. It’s only when we can remove the obstacles preventing us from accepting and loving ourselves that we can truly belong and connect and enjoy life to the fullest. Adlerian therapy helps to bring understanding, self compassion and the courage to live the way we want to live it! 

Adler’s view of human change was a very optimistic one, he sees us as capable of creative adaptations and personal evolution. Here is a little more about the ideas that underpin this therapeutic approach….  

    • Radical Optimism and Agency (Teleology): Unlike deterministic psychological models that view us as prisoners of our past or unconscious drives, Adlerian psychology is teleological—it focuses on purpose and goals. It assumes you are the author of your life, meaning your past explains you, but it does not confine you. You always have the power to choose a new direction.

    • The Courage to Be Imperfect: Adlerian theory fiercely combats perfectionism by emphasizing human belonging over social status or flawless performance. It encourages self-acceptance, teaching that worth is inherent rather than earned through achievement.

    • Deeply Relational (Belonging / Social Interest / Gemeinschaftsgefühl): Adler placed human connection at the absolute centre of mental health. He argued that our well-being is fundamentally tied to our feeling of belonging and our capacity to contribute to the welfare of others. Healing happens in community.

    • Demystifying the Inner World ("Private Logic"): By breaking down how we form our core beliefs early in life—and viewing them a bit like internal "software" that can be updated—Adlerian work takes the mystery out of psychological suffering. It turns self-exploration into a collaborative, logical investigation rather than an endless excavation of misery.

    • Collaborative Partnership: Adlerian therapy rejects the hierarchical "expert-and-patient" dynamic in favour of a side-by-side companionship. The therapist acts as an encouraging partner, which instantly lowers shame and builds profound safety for someone struggling with self-doubt or low self-esteem.

Adlerian therapy in a nutshell:  life-affirming, practical, and empowering. Because it views human beings as whole, social, and goal-directed rather than broken or driven purely by past trauma, In short, Adlerian therapy gives you the insight to understand your inner world and the courage to change how you live in the outer world.

I just wanted to write you an email of gratitude to thank you for all you do for me, I have seen so much change in myself in so many positive ways and I would not be here without you Alex, you have this beautiful way of being fair and pulling me up on my sh*t but also advocating for me.
You are a special guy and therapist and its been such a beautiful journey so far.

No one has given me such an amazing gift (It truly is the greatest of gifts) as you have which is to look within at myself and reflect and to accept who I am, as I am today. 

Thank you, Alex. Thank you truly for giving me this gift.

-M.O