Anita's Approach and Specialisms

Anita's approach draws primarily on psychodynamic and humanistic psychotherapy, with attachment theory playing an important role in her work.

She considers how childhood experiences, family relationships and significant events throughout life can influence the way people respond to others, particularly within intimate relationships. Understanding these influences can help clients make sense of emotional reactions, recurring difficulties and patterns that may otherwise feel confusing or difficult to change.

Her work is collaborative and adapted to the needs of each client. She combines exploration of underlying emotional and relational difficulties with more structured approaches, including EMDR for trauma and Systematic Affair Recovery Therapy for couples recovering from infidelity.

Anita places importance on developing a trusting therapeutic relationship, allowing clients to explore sensitive or painful experiences at a pace that feels comfortable.

Couples and Relationship Therapy

One of the most distinctive aspects of Anita's couples work is the attention she gives to each partner's personal history. With over 20 years of clinical experience, she understands that what couples argue about is often only part of what is happening between them.

A disagreement about something seemingly small can carry years of accumulated hurt. One partner may feel constantly criticised, while the other feels ignored or unimportant. Both may be responding to experiences of rejection, insecurity or conflict that began long before they met.

Drawing on psychodynamic psychotherapy and attachment theory, Anita helps couples uncover these connections. She explores the expectations each partner brings into the relationship, what triggers their strongest reactions and why familiar arguments can become so difficult to resolve. Understanding the reasons behind a partner's behaviour can change how that behaviour is experienced, opening up conversations that previously ended in blame or defensiveness.

Anita also brings structure to this deeper work through her training as a Prepare-Enrich Facilitator. She helps couples address communication difficulties, differing expectations and the practical changes needed to improve their relationship.

Her work is particularly relevant for couples who have tried repeatedly to resolve the same problems but find themselves returning to familiar patterns, despite genuinely wanting things to change.

Infidelity and Affair Recovery

Anita specialises in helping couples affected by infidelity and has completed Level 1 training in Systematic Affair Recovery Therapy (SART), a therapeutic model developed specifically for affair recovery.

SART provides a structured framework built around seven milestones of recovery. These include understanding what happened, addressing the emotional impact of the betrayal, deciding how to move forward and developing a plan for healing. The model helps therapists address the particular difficulties that arise following infidelity, rather than relying solely on general couples counselling.

Alongside this specialist training, Anita brings over 20 years of clinical experience and a strong understanding of attachment. She explores how each partner's personal history, earlier experiences and expectations influence their reactions within the relationship. This can help couples understand why certain conversations become so painful and why some difficulties are particularly hard to resolve.

Anita's combination of specialist affair recovery training and attachment-informed psychotherapy allows her to consider both the impact of the betrayal and the wider relationship history, helping partners develop a deeper understanding of what has happened between them.

Trauma and EMDR Therapy

Anita is an EMDRIA-certified EMDR practitioner with extensive experience treating trauma. Her clinical background includes working with PTSD and complex mental health difficulties, and she has a particular interest in how painful past experiences continue to affect people's relationships and their sense of themselves.

Anita uses EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) to help clients process distressing experiences that have left a lasting impact. These might include abuse, bullying or rejection, where the emotional effects can continue long after the experience itself.

What is distinctive about Anita's trauma work is how she combines EMDR with her understanding of attachment and earlier relationships. She considers how past experiences have shaped a person's beliefs about themselves and their expectations of others, particularly when these contribute to difficulties in present relationships.

She also draws on Internal Family Systems (IFS) when a client needs preparation before beginning EMDR. This allows her to work with different emotional parts and protective responses that may be making it difficult to approach painful memories. Rather than moving straight into trauma processing, Anita takes time to address these difficulties so that EMDR can be more effective.

Family Estrangement and Reconciliation

Anita works with families experiencing estrangement, particularly parents and adult children who have become distant or lost contact. She has developed this area of her practice through her extensive experience in family therapy and her interest in understanding how relationships change over time.

Family estrangement often has a long history. Different family members may have very different memories of what happened, why the relationship deteriorated and who was responsible. Attempts to discuss these differences can sometimes lead to further conflict, particularly when longstanding hurt and expectations remain unresolved.

Anita draws on her psychodynamic and attachment-informed approach to explore these difficulties. She is interested in the family history behind the estrangement, including how earlier experiences, patterns of communication and unresolved emotional injuries have shaped the relationship.

Her experience working with high-conflict situations is also relevant here. She helps family members understand one another's perspectives and explore the difficulties that have prevented them from communicating constructively.

For families considering reconciliation, Anita's work focuses on developing greater understanding of what has happened and exploring whether the relationship can move forward in a different way.

Cross-Cultural Relationships and Christian Couples

Anita has a particular interest in working with cross-cultural couples and those whose Christian faith is an important part of their relationship. Her approach draws on attachment theory and an understanding of how cultural backgrounds, family experiences and personal values influence the way people relate to one another.

Partners from different cultural backgrounds may have grown up with very different expectations around marriage, family responsibilities, communication and the roles they take within a relationship. These differences are not always obvious at first and can become a source of misunderstanding or conflict over time.

Anita helps couples explore where these expectations come from and why certain differences can feel particularly difficult to navigate. Her psychodynamic and attachment-informed approach allows her to look at the family histories and experiences behind each partner's perspective, helping them develop a better understanding of one another.

Having grown up in South East Asia and being married to an Indian partner, Anita also brings some personal familiarity with cross-cultural relationships.

She welcomes Christian couples who want their faith and values to be understood within therapy, while working respectfully and without judgement with couples of all backgrounds and beliefs.