Katie Linden

Many people have periods during their lives when they feel distressed, overwhelmed, unhappy or anxious. Sometimes this passes quickly or can be overcome with support from friends or family, but at other times it can be helpful to talk things through with someone. Counselling is a regular time when you can speak about whatever you want – your life, health, relationships, sexuality, past trauma or losses – and to have someone give you their full attention. Or you might come because you feel vaguely unhappy, or lost, or dissatisfied, but can’t put a finger on why. Counselling can be an exploration of your life, patterns you see in it, and how you came to be who and where you are.

Equally, many people come to see me with a specific problem. Therapy can be helpful for people struggling with anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, eating disorders, addictions and a whole host of other psychological and social issues. My areas of particular experience are eating disorders and other forms of distress around food and weight, self harm, trauma and dissociation. I have considerable experience of supporting people with dissociative identity disorder. While I have training in approaches which can be helpful with specific issues, such as EMDR and motivational interviewing, I believe that my main aim as a therapist is to be a safe, supportive, non-judgemental human being, rather than an expert technician.

I welcome and aim to practice in an affirmative way with clients who identify as gender or sexually diverse, including but not limited to people who identify as one or more of binary or non-binary trans, queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, and poly.

As I’ve gained experience, I’ve gradually ended up working with more people who have longer term difficulties, often relating to trauma, and want ongoing therapy. I am however happy to see people who would rather have a time limit set.