Dr Anne Augustine

It can be exhausting to carry a heavy burden on your own. Perhaps you feel like an observer in your own life, questioning who you are or where you belong. You might notice yourself stuck in old ways of coping that once kept you safe, but now leave you feeling isolated or unseen. Maybe you are navigating a painful rupture in a relationship, or a persistent sadness you can’t name.

You don’t have to hold all of this by yourself. 

In our work together, we slow down and pay attention to what is happening right here, right now, between us and within you, recognising both your inner world and the external forces shaping it.

So much of what we internalise as "personal struggle"—anxiety, shame, self-criticism, or burnout—is a natural and valid response to past harms, systemic oppression, and structural inequality.

I’m Anne, a relational Gestalt psychotherapist working online and in person from Clements Hall in York.

How We Work Together

Relational Gestalt therapy is a collaborative, human-to-human encounter rooted in social justice values. Rather than diagnosing you, making interpretations, or analysing your responses, together, we explore your lived experience with deep curiosity and sensitivity:

• Present-moment awareness: Noticing thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and even what feels absent or unspoken.
• The relational and systemic field: Exploring how you connect with yourself, with me, and with the world around you. Acknowledging how power, social location, and environment influence our sense of self and relationships.
• Experiential and somatic practices: Offering creative, grounding ways to support your nervous system when words aren't enough to hold what your body carries.

I offer an inclusive, anti-oppressive, and trauma-informed space. My practice is LGBTQIA+ and QTIPOC affirmative, sex-positive, neurodiversity-affirming, and anti-colonial. I respect your unique pace, autonomy, and self-expression—never fitting you into diagnostic boxes.

Areas I can support you with include stress and burnout, overwhelm, anxiety, people pleasing and appeasing others, grief and loss, relationship difficulties, struggling to feel safe around people, shame, low self esteem, intense self criticism, feeling like you're too much / not enough, loneliness, masking your true self, reconnecting with yourself and others, and enhancing self acceptance.

Areas of Deep Focus

• Midlife & Menopause Transitions: Navigating the physical, emotional, identity, and spiritual shifts of midlife in a culture that devalues ageing and bodily wisdom, helping you come home to your voice.
• Healing Past Relational & Systemic Hurt: Gently exploring how past experiences and structural harms shape your present, developing more awareness of how your needs for internal safety and authentic connection can be met.
• Identity, Intersectionality & Belonging: An affirming space that honours your culture, heritage, gender, or sexuality, naming the impacts of minoritisation and othering, and offering a space to rage, grieve, and celebrate what brings you joy.
• Relationships (Couples, Siblings, Co-parents): Naming and moving beyond unhelpful communication loops, learning how to repair ruptures, and navigating transitions or respectful endings - based on mutual equity and care.
• Spiritual & Existential Inquiry: An open, grounded space to explore big questions, meaning, purpose, and your place in the universe.

Taking the First Step

Finding the right therapeutic fit is essential. I invite you to a free 20-minute online initial chat (30 minutes for relationships) to share what brings you to therapy and get a feel for how we might work together.

If we decide to move forward, our first full session acts as a gentle, low-pressure space to explore our way of being together before agreeing on short-term (8–12 sessions) or open-ended work.

Reaching out for support in a world that often demands self-reliance takes immense courage. I am here to meet you with warmth, curiosity, and care.

I operate a sliding scale fee structure, where you pay what is affordable for you.

• Individual therapy: £55-£70 per 50-minute weekly session.
• Couples & relationships: £80-£95 (for two people) per 60-minute session.