Maniesha Blakey

Hello, I’m Maniesha.

Most people don’t come to counselling because something is wrong with them. They come because the ways they’ve learned to cope have started to cost more than they give back.

I’m a registered counsellor with a Master of Counselling. I’ve worked with university students finding their feet, couples carrying the strain of IUI and IVF, and adults at many different stages of life. 

I’ve also lived and worked across three continents, which has taught me there is no single “right” way to feel, grieve, love, or recover. Your culture, context, and history matter, and I’ll want to understand them.

I specialise in:

• Anxiety and stress
• Burnout, especially in demanding, high-responsibility roles
• Relationship difficulties
• Abuse and its longer-term effects
• Bullying in adulthood – at work, in families, friendships or communities

Adult bullying is often brushed aside or viewed as something to ignore. Yet it can shake your confidence and sense of safety as deeply as anything that happened in childhood. You won’t need to justify why it affected you here.

My work is trauma-aware and attachment-focused. In plain terms, I’m curious about how your early relationships shaped what you expect from others, and from yourself. I also pay attention to how your body and nervous system respond to stress, not just your thoughts. Patterns like people-pleasing, overworking, or pulling away usually made sense once. We can look at them with respect rather than blame.

Alongside counselling, I coach founders and leaders, so I understand high-pressure environments and the particular loneliness of being the one everyone else relies on.

If any of this feels familiar, you’re welcome to get in touch.

Therapy with me is a collaboration. You are the expert on your own life; I bring training, experience and a outside view. Together we work out what will actually help, and that can change as we go.

I work integratively, which simply means that I draw from different therapeutic models according to your needs and circumstances. My foundation is person-centred: warmth, honesty and respect for your pace. From there, I draw on:

• CBT – practical tools for when anxiety, worry or overthinking take over
• Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) – understanding the emotional cycles that keep couples and relationships stuck
• Attachment-informed work – making sense of why closeness, conflict or trust feel the way they do
• Strengths-based approaches – because what you’ve come through says a lot about what you’re capable of

Because my practice is trauma-aware, nothing is rushed. You decide what we talk about and when. If something feels like too much, we slow down, ground ourselves and return when appropriate.

Some clients come for a focused piece of work over. Others prefer longer-term, open-ended work to explore deeper patterns. Both are welcome, and we’ll review progress together regularly so you always know where you are and whether therapy is still helping.

I work with individuals and couples. 

My sessions are 50 minutes. I work online and in-person. 

Please contact me via email or through my website for availability.

Email: maniesha@manieshablakey.com
Website: https://www.manieshablakey.com/

Reaching out is often the hardest step, so let me take some of the guesswork out of what happens next.

Before we meet, I offer a free one-time 15-minute call so you can see how it feels to talk with me.

Our first session has two purposes: for me to get a sense of you and for you to get a sense of me. I’ll explain how confidentiality works and its limits, and we’ll agree how we’ll work together. Then I’ll ask what has brought you here now, what you’d like to be different, and a little about your background and the support around you.

You don’t need to tell me everything. And you don’t even need to know where to start. 

Some people expect to cry; others feel oddly calm or flat. Both are normal. 

If you’re feeling nervous, we can begin with something simple and take pauses, or I can do more of the talking at first. 

If you’re coming as a couple, I’ll make sure you each have space to speak, and I’ll want to hear how things look from both sides.

Towards the end, I’ll share some early thoughts on how I might help, and we’ll talk about what you’d like from the sessions ahead. 

You’re welcome to take time to decide whether to continue. Feeling comfortable with your counsellor matters more than almost anything else.