Anne Brassier

I am taking on new clients, both in person and online. Note: I am licensed to work remotely with clients in the EU and am bilingual French/English, working in both languages.

I work from a psychodynamic approach, which is conversational and exploratory, rather than directive — because change often comes from insight rather than advice or tools and techniques.

This approach to therapy is a collaborative process — I bring my clinical experience, and you bring your lived experience of being you. In sessions, we take time to talk about what’s going on for you emotionally and relationally. We’ll explore patterns that have developed over time and be curious about what’s happening beneath the surface for you, to see how your past experiences may be shaping the present.

As sessions progress, I encourage you to bring anything you’re thinking and feeling into the room — even frustration, doubt, irritation, or not wanting to be in therapy — because those feelings can be really useful in helping us understand what’s happening in you.

The aim of this therapy is for you to gain insight and understanding that leads to meaningful and lasting change. It’s not the right therapeutic approach for everyone, but if you want depth rather than a quick fix or short-term coping, psychodynamic therapy can be very powerful.

How it works

We meet weekly at the same day and time for 50 minute sessions. I listen, support, challenge and prompt to help you work through your feelings. Sessions feel conversational and go back and forth between the past and the present to help you understand and contextualise what's going on now.

I have particular experience with:

• Anxiety and feeling overwhelmed
• Grief and loss
• Gender and sexuality
• Relationships inc relationship to self, food, non—monogamy and polyamory
• Depression and depressive episodes
• The decision to have – or not have – a family, including infertility, assisted fertility and adoption
• Processing an autism / ADHD diagnosis

I welcome enquiries for these, or any other challenge that you might be facing.

Therapy is somewhere neutral where you can talk about things that might be difficult to discuss with partners, friends or family. I help you process and manage emotional and psychological issues.

The process generally involves:

• An initial assessment and information meeting, for us to get a sense of one another
• Using the early weeks to establish our therapeutic relationship and build trust, as well as continuing to gather information to understand more deeply what brings you to therapy
• Facilitating your emotional expression by encouraging honest self–exploration and increasing self-awareness
• Interpretations, interventions, observations and insights provided by me, that help you ‘join the dots’ of your life
• Checking in on your progress and eventually managing an ending that consolidates any insights and gains

Our initial session is an opportunity for us to meet and see how working together might feel.

I start by outlining the terms of our therapeutic relationship so that our working agreement is clear for you.

I then gather information about what has prompted you to seek therapy at this moment; this includes details events and experiences, as well as the significant people in your life. We also discuss your expectations of therapy and of a therapist.

Most importantly, the first meeting allows us to get a sense of each other, establishing a foundation for our therapeutic relationship going forward.