Seema Dhanak

I am available and taking new clients 

I am a psychodynamic therapist offering a thoughtful, confidential space in which to explore emotional difficulties, relationship patterns and experiences that may feel complex or hard to name. I work with the understanding that our inner world is shaped not only by early relationships, but also by family systems, culture and social context.

While I am open to working with clients of any gender, age, ethnicity or sexual orientation, I have over 20 years of professional experience working with domestic abuse and coercive dynamics within South Asian families. This includes an understanding of the impact of abuse where individuals are living with, or in close proximity to, extended family networks, as well as the complexities of global, cross-border family structures.

My work recognises how factors such as honour, shame, gender roles, intergenerational expectations, migration, faith and extended family dynamics can shape experiences of control, silence and emotional conflict. I am also attentive to how my own social identity plays an integral role in understanding how we navigate sameness and difference within the therapeutic relationship.

My approach is sensitive to the ways cultural values can be both sustaining and constraining. I am attentive to how loyalty, dependency and power may operate within close relationships, and to how these dynamics can make it difficult to recognise abuse or to seek support.

I work in a steady, containing and non-judgemental way, prioritising emotional safety, choice and respect. Therapy offers a space to think together about repeating patterns, strong feelings and relational experiences, including those that emerge within the therapeutic relationship itself. I hope to support insight, self-understanding and the possibility of change.

I welcome people from a wide range of backgrounds and aim to work at a pace that feels manageable, collaborative and respectful of each person’s values and lived experience.