Rino Manzo

Most of the people I work with look, from the outside, like they are coping. The job gets done. The relationships hold. Nothing is visibly wrong. Underneath, something does not match. They feel anxious, or flat, or a long way from their own lives. They read a room before they enter it. They cannot rest, even when there is nothing left to do.

Some arrive because the coping has just stopped working. That is not too late. It is usually the beginning.

I work with trauma. Often not one terrible event with a date attached, but years of a pattern, usually starting young, usually inside a relationship you could not leave. What you learned then kept you safe. The question changed and the answer did not, so your body is still scanning rooms that hold no threat. This is the kind sometimes called complex trauma.

I work slowly. I do not push for answers, go looking for the worst thing that ever happened to you, or assume I know what is going on. A nervous system that spent years bracing does not soften because someone asks it to. We work at the pace your body will actually allow, paying attention to what shows up in it, and to what is hard to stay with.

The other half is the relationship itself. What you learned, you learned from someone whose reactions you could not predict, and that tends to be where it changes: in a relationship where the old rules do not apply. Where you are not reading me for signs. Where going quiet is allowed, and so is not going quiet. It is slower than insight, and it is the part that holds.

You do not need a diagnosis, a crisis, or a story bad enough to qualify. If something feels heavier than it should, that is enough.

I see people in person at Water Lane Cottage in Bishop's Stortford, and online by video with adults across the UK. Sessions are 50 minutes, weekly, at £70. There is no set agenda and no fixed ending; we work at the pace that feels right for you.

What to expect from me: I will not rush you, hand you homework, or steer you toward the worst chapters of your story. Early sessions are about your nervous system learning, at its own speed, that this is a place where nothing is required of you. People often say the most useful thing at the start was simply not being hurried.

I am a qualified counsellor (CPCAB TC-L4) and trauma-informed. I am a Registered Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP) and an Accredited Registrant of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (MNCPS (Acc.)). I work within the BACP Ethical Framework and receive regular clinical supervision.

Alongside the client work I write about the survival cycle: the sequence by which a present-day trigger produces a body response, a survival response, and then a story that explains it. Much of what we do together is learning to see that sequence in your own life, in real time, rather than only in hindsight. There is more of that writing at rinomanzo.com.

If you would like to find out whether working together feels right, I offer a free 20-minute call. No pressure and no commitment.

I do not offer a separate assessment session, and there are no forms to complete before we begin. If you would like to talk first, there is a free 20-minute call, by phone or video, where you can ask anything you want to and get a sense of how I work. There is no obligation on either side.

The first session is a normal session, at the normal rate, and you do not need to arrive with your story prepared or a problem you can name. We start wherever you are, and if that is "I do not really know why I am here, things just feel heavier than they should", that is a perfectly good beginning.

I will usually ask a little about what day-to-day life is like and what you would like to be different. You choose what to share and when. Nothing is required in the first session, and nothing is dug for. Going slowly at the start is deliberate. It is how trust gets built, and with trauma it is how the work eventually goes deep.

Sessions are in person in Bishop's Stortford or online by video, whichever suits you. Some people begin online and move to the room later. Either is fine.