Kate Nicholls

I am currently accepting new clients.

I work with adults who are experiencing difficult or harmful family relationships, including the often subtle effects of parental or sibling abuse, emotional neglect, coercive control, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, enmeshment, and the inner conflict that can accompany family estrangement. Many of my clients have spent years feeling misunderstood, blamed, or questioning whether their experiences were real or valid.

Therapy offers a space to begin untangling long-standing patterns of relating, to feel genuinely heard and respected, and to develop a stronger sense of who you are beyond the roles you were given in childhood—and may still be expected to play today.

My hope is that therapy will help you feel heard, understood, and validated in your own experience. Working at your own pace, we can begin to understand how persistent self-doubt has taken root, shaping the way you see yourself and influencing how you respond not only within your family, but also in your relationships, friendships, and working life.

As your self-awareness deepens, you may begin to trust your own thoughts and feelings more fully, feel less vulnerable to the expectations or control of others, and become more securely connected to yourself—separate, safe, and grounded, whatever is happening around you.

When you've spent years being misunderstood, therapy can be the first place where your experience finally begins to make sense.

Please get in touch to arrange a free 20-minute introductory call. It is an opportunity for us to talk about what has brought you here and to get a sense of whether we are the right fit to work together.

Hello and welcome to my practice. My name is Kate Nicholls, and I am a registered psychotherapist offering weekly psychodynamic psychotherapy for adults experiencing a wide range of difficult feelings, which may present as low mood, anxiety, depression, stress, or difficulties in relationships. You are welcome to explore my website to find out more about how therapy might support you. 

Please get in touch if you would like to talk through your situation, and to arrange an initial consultation. I aim to respond promptly, and all enquiries are treated in complete confidence.

https://www.kate-nicholls-psychotherapy.com/

Perhaps you have found yourself here because anxiety or depression is affecting your everyday life, you are tired of the struggles you face each day, and you want something to change.

Perhaps you recognise that you feel driven to repeat patterns of behaviour that cause distress and pain in your relationships. Or perhaps you have had a sense for some time that something is not quite right - a voice inside that seems to hold you back from living a happy and fulfilling life - and you are curious to see whether therapy might help.

How we think and feel in the present - how we experience ourselves and others today - is often shaped by what has gone before, frequently rooted in early relationships and childhood experiences. Our responses to friends, family, and those close to us, as well as our inner emotional life and patterns of thinking, are often influenced by how we were responded to in the past.

By working together psychodynamically, therapy can help bring unconscious feelings and patterns into awareness, allowing space to explore thoughts and feelings that may previously have been out of reach, including experiences of trauma, rejection, and loss.

Through weekly therapy sessions, I offer support in exploring how past experiences, unconscious patterns, and present-day relationships may be shaping your life now.

This work can be helpful if you are experiencing emotional difficulties such as low mood, sadness, or anxiety, and also if you are noticing physical symptoms that may be connected to your emotional wellbeing.

Weekly Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

I offer sessions on weekdays. Each session lasts 50 minutes and takes place at the same time each week, on the same day.

Whatever you may be experiencing, my aim is to help you develop a deeper understanding of the situation you find yourself in, while providing a safe, non-judgemental, and confidential space in which you can explore who you are more fully, allowing a stronger and more authentic sense of self to emerge.

My Qualifications

I hold an MSc with Distinction in Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy from Birkbeck College, the University of London, as well as a BSc (Hons) in Psychology.

Professional Bodies

I am a fully clinically trained, insured, and registered Senior Accredited Psychotherapist with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), and a registered Psychodynamic Counsellor with the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC).

I am also a fully trained and insured clinical supervisor, and I hold a supervisory qualification endorsed by BAPPS (the British Association of Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic Supervisors).

My Experience

I have extensive experience working with clients from a wide range of backgrounds and with a broad range of emotional difficulties, both in private practice and within other therapeutic services.

I offer a no-obligation 20-minute introductory call by Zoom or telephone. This gives you an opportunity to experience what it feels like to talk with me and to consider whether working together feels right. 

If you have any questions or would like to know more, please feel free to get in touch by phone or email. All enquiries are treated with strict confidentiality.

If you call and reach my voicemail, please do leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

I offer a supportive and thought-provoking space to explore clinical material, unconscious dynamics, and countertransference feelings, to deepen your practice.

I completed my supervision training at the Rock Clinic in Brighton, a course certified by BAPPS. My original training is from Birkbeck College, in London, where I gained a Masters (Distinction) in Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy.

The classic psychoanalytic theoretical frame offers a starting point to supervision, but my approach considers necessary adaptations to original ideas, as we navigate the diversity of the psychosocial sphere we live in today. Therefore, I am flexible in my supervisory approach, believing the foundation of a positive alliance is the ability to hold a fair frame, along with consideration-of and working-in the transference when appropriate.

I am available for bi-weekly 50-minute sessions either in person (based in Worthing, UK) or online (Zoom). 

I am a fully trained and insured clinical supervisor, gaining a supervisory qualification endorsed by the BAPPS (British Association of Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic Supervisors).

Along with being a Senior Accredited Member of the BACP I am also a member of the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC).