Emma Chesterman

I am available for online sessions, flexibly Monday - Friday.

Sessions last a full 60 minutes, giving more space for deeper exploration and processing.

Fees are £135-160, depending on frequency of sessions.

A limited number of concessionary places are available - please ask.

Does it feel like the world isn’t making sense?

Perhaps you’re throwing everything at life, but somehow aren’t getting where you want.

Maybe it’s like Groundhog Day: the same thing has happened again in work or relationships, and you don’t know why.

Or perhaps life has just come crashing down like a house of cards, and you are reeling.

It can be hard. Yet you know life offers wonderful things, and you want to reach them.

Welcome. It's good to have you here.

I help people untangle the knotty stuff and build lives that feel more their own and more alive. I’ve worked in NHS mental health services and private practice, and volunteer in a hospice bereavement service.

I love people’s complexity and diversity, and work a lot with neurodivergent clients, especially AuDHD, Autism, and ADHD, bringing specialist training, 13 years’ professional practice, and lived experience.

I’ve also lived abroad and work with clients from very diverse backgrounds.

Our individual perspectives, experiences, and aspirations – these are our gifts.

Sometimes things shift, and the old way of living no longer works. It may be things like divorce or loss, or changes like parenthood or retirement.

Often there is no obvious external crisis. Just a growing sense of:

“I can’t bear it.”

“No more of this.”

“What do I want?”

“How do I get there?”

These times can feel awful. They can be survived. And life afterwards can be good. I’ve seen clients arrive lost or distraught and leave with more joy, meaning, and possibility than they ever imagined.

It’s not pretty, but crap makes great manure.

Qualifications and training:

- Postgraduate degree in counselling & coaching (BACP accred.)

- Postgraduate degree in psychology (BPS accred.)

- Anatomy & physiology,

specialisms: mind-body; stress response (MTI accred.)

- Autism, ADHD & AuDHD training

- Trained in NVC (communication that nurtures relationships)

- Trauma training with Bessel Van der Kolk & Peter Levine

- Trauma of racism training

- Accredited bereavement counsellor

A safe and accepting space

I seek to create a safe, caring, accepting space where clients feel free to bring what they want, when they want, comfortable in the knowledge that they are understood, respected, and cared about. These are the conditions in which people can heal, grow, and flourish.

How I work

I integrate a range of approaches because different people need different kinds of support at different times in their lives.

For example, we might:

• explore patterns of feeling and behaviour

• look back to understand how the past has shaped us

• gain new perspectives

• develop concrete strategies to shift feelings and behaviours that are no longer serving us.

Counselling and coaching

As a coach, I can also help clients think strategically about their values, goals, and how to move towards them, when that is helpful.

I’ve found the combination of counselling and coaching approaches invaluable. When people come for counselling, they can reach a point of, “I get it — what next?”, and coaching can help them move forwards. And when people come for coaching, they often hit a block that requires therapeutic processing to overcome and get them on track again.

Working with the body

Some people find that working with the body unlocks things in a way they cannot access through thoughts, feelings, or talking alone. This, too, can be a valuable part of our work together.

Strengths, purpose, and possibility

We need to feel safe enough to bring our frailties and fears, but we also need to recognise and work with our strengths — which, in my experience, people rarely fully identify — and to make sure our lives reflect our priorities and sense of purpose.

Perhaps you can already see what you’d like life to look like; perhaps at the moment you simply know you want something that isn’t this. Whatever your questions, concerns, aspirations, or pain, I am here to support you through the knotty stuff and help you embrace a life that feels more alive and more your own.

There is so much possibility.

Finding the right therapist matters. Research consistently shows that the relationship between client and therapist is the biggest factor in whether therapy helps. You need someone you can speak honestly with, feel comfortable with, and who makes sense to you.

To support that process, I offer a free 20-minute introductory phone call. It’s a chance for us to get a sense of one another, for you to ask questions, and for me to begin understanding what has brought you here and what you might want from this work.

If there is anything you are unsure about, hesitant to ask, or worried might sound strange — please ask. You are very welcome.

First sessions are usually a little different from ongoing therapy sessions. We begin by getting a clearer sense of where things are now, what has brought you here, what you have already tried, and what may help. We also cover practicalities like confidentiality, payment, and how sessions work.

Think of it as beginning to sketch a map together.

As therapy progresses, I strongly encourage clients to tell me how things are working for them, whether they want more or less of something, and anything else they’d like me to know. Therapy works best as a collaborative process rather than something being “done” to you.

It’s your life, your pain, your plans, your hopes. The work needs to fit you.

Modalities:

ACT, Behavioural, CBT, CFT, Existential, Gestalt, Humanistic, IFS, NVC, Person-Centred, Psychodynamic, TA.

Counselling, coaching.