Jacqueline Court-Bencardino

I am accepting new clients. However, I have limited availability at the moment but I do have a few slots throughout the day. So please do contact me if these times would work for you. 

I'm Jacqueline, Integrative Counsellor/Psychotherapist with a postgraduate degree in Psychology and an EMDR Practitioner, I specialise in Trauma and Women's Health.

For over 10 years, I've worked with women at every stage of life: rebuilding after trauma or a toxic relationship, learning to stay themselves inside a relationship instead of disappearing into one, exhausted from trying to be enough, and moving through the big transitions life brings, from adulting to motherhood to becoming someone new.

Many of the women I work with are in their 20s, 30s and 40s, asking the same question: how do I build a relationship with myself that's healthy, not just one that looks fine from the outside?

For me, healing isn't just something that happens in your head. It lives in your body, your relationships, your nervous system, and in childhood stories you never chose.

I identify as a human first and a counsellor second. My own healing journey is part of why I do this work.

You might be in the right place if:

*You've been through trauma, a toxic relationship, or a difficult childhood, and can still feel it in your body and relationships

*You're exhausted from trying to be enough: the harsh inner critic, the perfectionism, the people pleasing, and the pressure to hold it together

*You're moving through a big life transition (a new relationship, motherhood, a new chapter) and aren't sure who you are on the other side of it

*You keep finding yourself in the same relationship with a different face, and want to understand your patterns in love, and learn how to be loved without losing yourself

*You understand your patterns perfectly well, you can name and predict them, but the problem persists. You'd like to stop intellectualising and actually feel your emotions

*You're navigating a women's health diagnosis (endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids and others) alongside its emotional weight.

Overall, you're done managing everyone and everything else, and ready to turn that same care toward yourself.

I don't follow a script, and I don't believe in one size fits all therapy. 

I work integratively, blending talk therapy, somatic approaches and parts work (IFS - Internal Family Systems).

It's also worth mentioning that I trained as an EMDR practitioner at an institution affiliated with the EMDR Institute and approved by EMDRIA and EMDR Europe. All of my training is CPD endorsed. 

In practice, this means we go wherever you actually need to go. Sometimes that's deep conversation, sometimes it's working with the body and nervous system, sometimes it's meeting the different parts of you that have been trying to protect you in different ways.

My aim is to bring warmth, honesty and a bit of humour into the room, whenever it's suitable. I don't tend to reach for generic coping strategies, and part of how I work involves gently challenging perspectives and beliefs when it's useful, always rooted in genuine care rather than easy reassurance. Warmth, honesty and curiosity are really at the core of how I show up as a therapist.

What I want, really, is for you to eventually not need me anymore. Not because I've smoothed everything over, but because you'll have actual tools, more self awareness, and more trust in yourself than when we started.

Finding an ideal therapist can require a lot of research and talking. . So before any commitment, I offer a free 15 minute introductory video call. No pressure, no obligation, it's just a chance to talk, and get a feel for whether we'd work well together.