Vera Braghiroli

My current availability for in-person sessions in Stroud is on Fridays, between 1 pm and 6 pm.

For online sessions, please get in touch to see if we can find a time that suits us both.

We are all telling ourselves stories about who we are. Mostly it serves us. Sometimes it stands between us and what we actually feel: a version of events that was useful once, built to make something bearable, and never looked at since.

Before training as a therapist, I worked in corporate media, learning how cultural narratives get built and how they shape desire, fear and self-image, often without our noticing. That attention comes with me into the room. Much of our work together is noticing the story you have been told, and the one you have been telling, and asking gently whether it is still true.

The quiet revolution of motherhood led me to coach parents navigating the demands of family life. Those years taught me to sit with difficulty without rushing towards a solution. That remains central to my work today, informed now by a deeper understanding of attachment. It is why I keep a school pastoral role alongside my practice: attachment needs are either met early, or they are carried.

As an Integrative Counsellor, I aim to offer you a space to become curious about and accepting of yourself. A space in which it is safe to try out new ways of being. I integrate person-centred, psychodynamic and embodied approaches, paying attention to what the body holds as well as what we think and feel.

In my own life and as a requirement of my training, I have had therapy myself. Having experienced life-changing therapeutic relationships, as well as damaging and neutral ones, I approach my profession with a strong sense of responsibility. Before anything else, I take time to build trust between us, because the quality of our connection matters more than any technique I can bring.

My practice is built on the belief that people are worth the care it takes to grow. Even when life makes us doubt that we belong or that we matter. Even when the world feels unsafe. Even when being alive is more than we know how to carry. Maybe then is when we most need reminding.

My therapy practice is called Udaya Therapy. 



I work one-to-one with adults, in person in Stroud, Gloucestershire, and online. 



Sessions are 50 minutes, usually at the same time each week, short-term or open-ended, depending on what you need.


My standard rate is £60, and I keep a small number of reduced-fee places. 



Being British-Italian, I offer therapy in English and Italian, and I welcome clients whose first language isn't English and those living at the intersection of cultures. 



I work with anxiety, low mood and burnout, and with self-esteem, personal development and life transitions. I support people through grief and loss, including the losses that aren't deaths, such as divorce, illness, redundancy, and leaving a country. Much of my work is with complex trauma, childhood abuse and neglect, and attachment difficulties that have followed you into adult life.



My practice is grounded in humanistic and existential thinking, and is relational, developmental and trauma-informed in how it works. In plain terms, I carefully pace our work, paying attention to what happened to you, to what is happening around you now, and to what happens between us. The last of these matters because the way you relate to me is the only relationship of yours I can see first-hand, and it usually has a great deal to teach us both. 



I integrate person-centred, psychodynamic and embodied approaches, drawing also on Gestalt, Transactional Analysis and Biodynamic work, to attend to what the body holds as well as to what we think and feel. 

Alongside talking, we might use imagery, mindfulness, movement or art. Depending on your needs, abilities and inclinations, we work out together what suits you.

Since no technique I have learned matters as much as the connection between us, if we don't click, I will help you find a better fit.

However you have coped until now, you have found a way to survive. That is not nothing. So we start there. 



I offer a free 15-minute introductory telephone conversation to discuss whether to meet for an initial session. You can automatically book it on my website or contact me to arrange a time. 

After the call, should we decide to proceed, we will agree on a time and day for us to meet, either in person or on an online video call, for an intake session. 



This first session is 60 minutes rather than the usual 50, to give us a little more time to get to know one another. The session is designed for you to tell me what brings you to therapy, how you would like things to be different, ask questions, and share any concerns you may have about the therapeutic process. For me, it’s an opportunity to understand how you are presently feeling, clarify what I can offer and whether I can help you with what you are finding difficult. This is a conversation to see how it feels sitting together and assess whether we can work together usefully.


After our first meeting, if we decide to proceed, we'll agree on a regular day and time to meet, usually weekly, the mode of counselling (in-person or online, brief or open-ended), and a start date.


If, after the intake session, you prefer not to proceed or I do not feel my skills or experience are suitable for your needs, I may be able to signpost you to other therapists or organisations which may better suit and support you.

My fee is the same for all sessions.