Sarah Dawnay

I am an experienced adult and couple psychotherapist, coach and former dispute resolution lawyer working in private practice in London and Oxford. 

I offer a safe space where we can work together to identify, explore and work through things that are troubling you.

People come to therapy for many different reasons; perhaps you are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, or stuck, or struggling with relationships or seeking personal growth. I adapt my approach to respond to your individual situation and aim to help you to move forwards towards positive change.

My approach is compassionate and empathetic and I work collaboratively with you to identify any emotions and challenges you may be facing aiming to help you to feel heard, accepted and understood.

I hope to help you to make sense of any feelings and to develop a greater understanding of unseen behaviours that may underlie psychological distress. In exploring this it may then be possible to address the current and past life experiences to which such feelings and behaviours may relate and to try to create different patterns of relating in the therapeutic relationship and outside, and in doing so move forwards towards positive and lasting change.

I work with individuals and couples on a wide range of emotional difficulties including:

- Anxiety, stress, panic attacks (including generalised anxiety disorder, health anxiety).

- Depression (low mood, sadness, feelings of despair, emptiness, isolation, loneliness, lack of direction or sense of purpose).

- Relationship difficulties/changes (couples, friendships, work, divorce/separation, affairs, sexuality, fertility, miscarriage, abortion, child birth).

- Low confidence and low self-esteem.

- Challenges around identity, body image and purpose.

- Work stress (negotiating work/life balance or work relationships, imposter syndrome, career transitions, redundancy, perfectionism, loss of meaning, burn out)

- Loss, grief,  illness, bereavement.

- Phobias and OCD.

- Traumatic events, physical or emotional abuse, PTSD.

- Major life transitions (mid-life crisis, redundancy, retirement).

- Counter-productive coping strategies such as disordered eating patterns, self-harm, anger management issues, and addiction.

Starting therapy can be a daunting process and I believe it takes courage to do so. 

For this reason I offer a free no obligation meeting (15-20 mins) where we can explore together what has has bought you to therapy now, what you hope to gain from therapy and whether you feel working together has the potential to change for the better. 

All enquiries are strictly confidential and this is an opportunity for you to explore whether you are comfortable in this setting and with me.

If after this consultation we decided to work together we would normally meet at the same time and location each week for 50 minutes.