Oriana Franceschi

Currently, I have availability on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays for online and in-person sessions.

I offer a free 15 minute video consultation or a full 50-minute session at a reduced cost of £30, so you can decide whether I feel like a good fit before proceeding.

I am passionate about helping trauma survivors and those with low self-esteem to connect with and enjoy three things: their bodies, their relationships and their everyday lives. I specialise in supporting clients to process their past, put shaming memories to rest and create change in the here-and-now.

I have experience in working with clients of all genders to:

• Make sense of relationships they are struggling to leave or move on from
  
• Understand why they repeat patterns which hurt them
  
• Process complex trauma, including childhood sexual abuse, survival sex work and homelessness
  
• Process birthing trauma
• Enjoy sex and intimacy again
  
• Connect authentically with partners, friends and family
  
• Unpick who they truly are, from who they have been told they are
  
• Value, take pride in and advocate for themselves

A qualified therapist is more than just a sympathetic ear - they can be a hand to hold in the dark, helping you find your way. If you choose me as that support, I can offer compassion and a genuine desire to understand alongside a creative and collaborative approach which is tailored to you, as an individual.

I work in an integrative way, drawing on training in person-centred, systemic and psychodynamic therapies. This means I show up as my genuine, authentic self and together we create an environment where you feel safe to do the same. While I accept you fully for who you are, I draw on different methods to help you create change: if you present with a specific problem, our work will be to understand where it comes from and why it persists, assess its impact on your life, and find long-term ways you can manage it independently. I’m confident exploring wherever you want to want to go, and I do so with curiosity, asking questions so that we can go down deep and bring what is troubling you into the light to figure it our together.

My approach will vary depending on the personality and needs of the person I’m working with, but here are a couple of comments about my work:

"It felt really easy talking to Oriana. Straight away I felt like I was in a space where I could speak without being judged. She was knowledgeable and insightful, and also friendly and warm and encouraging. She made counselling feel easier than I thought it might be and her observations of things I was feeling and things I was thinking really helped me to make connections I didn’t know were there.

Counselling with Oriana helped me understand myself better and work through some difficult feelings and experiences, and I left with a better understanding of what I’m doing and where I’m going."

- A former client

"Oriana is an experienced and highly skilled counsellor who has worked with a wide range of presenting issues, many of them complex. She works in a genuinely person-centred way, creating a safe and collaborative space in which clients can identify and shape the focus of their therapeutic work, enabling meaningful engagement in the process. Her naturally warm, attentive, and empathic style supports the development of strong therapeutic relationships and helps clients feel at ease quickly, often enabling progress to be made within a short timeframe."

- Sam Chu, Director of Paradigm Psychology 

In our first session, it's important you feel as comfortable as possible. There will be no expectation placed on you in terms of what, or how much you share - I will be happy to take you as you come.