Ger’s approach and specialisms

Ger works from a warm, collaborative and person-centred foundation. With training across a wide range of therapeutic approaches, she can adapt how she works according to the individual rather than applying the same model to every client.

Her approach to autism and ADHD is strongly neuro-affirming. Therapy is not focused on changing or correcting neurodivergent traits. Instead, Ger works with clients to understand how they experience themselves and the world around them, including the impact of environments and relationships that may not have understood or accommodated their needs.

As an autistic psychotherapist, Ger also brings lived understanding to this work alongside her professional training and many years of clinical experience. She recognises, however, that there is no single autistic or neurodivergent experience and remains focused on understanding the individual in front of her.

Autism and Neurodivergence

Ger has specialised in working therapeutically with autistic and neurodivergent people for approximately 15 years.

Her experience includes long-term clinical work with autistic adults, people with ADHD and individuals with intellectual disabilities and complex mental health needs. She has worked in private practice, residential healthcare and multidisciplinary clinical settings and has provided specialist autism and neurodivergence education to professionals and support teams.

Ger’s neuro-affirming approach focuses on understanding the person beyond a diagnosis. Therapy can provide space to explore what being autistic or neurodivergent means to you, including experiences that may only begin to make sense once they are understood through the context of neurodivergence.

Her work can include anxiety, emotional regulation, relationships, identity, self-esteem and the cumulative impact of navigating environments that have not always understood or accommodated the way you experience the world.

She is trained in autism-informed therapy and is a licensed Dawn Practitioner for therapeutic and clinical work with autistic adults.

Masking, Autistic Burnout and Self-Acceptance

Ger has a particular interest in masking and autistic burnout.

Years of adapting behaviour, monitoring social interactions or trying to meet expectations that do not fit naturally can have a significant emotional impact. Ger works with clients to understand the role masking may have played in their lives and what it has cost them emotionally and physically.

Therapy can also explore identity and self-acceptance. For some clients, particularly those who have understood their neurodivergence later in life, this can involve looking back at earlier experiences through a different lens and reconsidering long-held beliefs about themselves.

Ger's approach is strengths-based without overlooking genuine difficulties. She supports clients to recognise their needs and limitations alongside their abilities and strengths, developing ways of living that work more comfortably with their neurotype rather than continually pushing against it.

Her lived experience as an autistic therapist brings an additional perspective to this work, while her specialist clinical experience allows her to recognise how differently autism can present from one person to another.

Anxiety and Emotional Regulation

Anxiety has been a significant part of Ger's clinical work throughout her career, including within her specialist work with autistic and neurodivergent adults.

She has advanced training in anxiety management and draws from CBT, Schema Therapy, Mindfulness and other therapeutic approaches according to the client's needs.

For neurodivergent clients, she considers anxiety within the wider context of their experience. Sensory demands, uncertainty, masking, social expectations, communication difficulties, workplace pressures and repeated experiences of being misunderstood can all contribute to overwhelm.

Rather than treating anxiety in isolation, therapy can help clients understand what is driving it, recognise patterns and develop ways of regulating emotions and responding to difficult situations that are realistic for them.

Ger also has experience working with depression, low mood, anger and OCD, allowing her to work with clients whose emotional difficulties overlap or are more complex.

Relationships and Communication

Ger supports adults experiencing difficulties within intimate, family, social and workplace relationships.

Neurodivergent people can encounter repeated misunderstandings where different communication styles, expectations or ways of processing emotion are interpreted negatively. Ger helps clients explore these patterns without automatically framing neurodivergent communication as deficient.

Her work can include understanding relationship patterns, communicating needs, managing conflict and recognising the impact of earlier relationships and attachment experiences.

Because Ger is an integrative psychotherapist, she can draw on Attachment Theory, Transactional Analysis, Schema Therapy and psychoanalytic thinking to explore deeper relational patterns while also using more practical approaches where these are useful.

This allows therapy to consider both what is happening in relationships now and the experiences that may have shaped how a person responds to closeness, conflict, rejection or misunderstanding.

Workplace Stress and Wellbeing

Ger has substantial experience supporting people with workplace stress and mental health through her previous Employee Assistance Programme work.

As Senior Psychotherapist at Nua Healthcare, she provided individual support to employees experiencing burnout, workplace stress, difficult incidents, relationship difficulties, bereavement and other mental health concerns. She also facilitated mediation between colleagues and delivered training on self-care, anxiety, communication, empathy fatigue and mental health.

This experience complements her specialist neurodivergence work. Autistic and ADHD adults can experience particular pressures at work around communication, sensory environments, workload, expectations, masking and the effort involved in navigating workplace culture.

Ger can help clients explore both the emotional impact of work and practical ways of understanding their needs, boundaries and patterns of stress.

Other Areas of Practice

Alongside her specialist neurodivergence work, Ger has extensive experience across a broad range of mental health and emotional difficulties.

Her clinical background includes work with depression and low mood, bereavement and complicated grief, OCD, anger and behavioural difficulties, childhood experiences, gender and sexual identity, relationship difficulties and stress.

She also has significant experience supporting adults with intellectual disabilities and people with complex mental health needs. During her 13 years with Nua Healthcare, she worked closely with multidisciplinary teams, healthcare professionals, families and support staff, including in situations involving complex behaviour and significant levels of clinical need.