Evelyn Montgomery

Hello, and welcome.
If you have found your way to my profile, you may be going through a difficult period, feeling stuck, overwhelmed or simply wondering “Why am I finding life so hard at the moment?”

You may know exactly what is wrong: a relationship has broken down, you have discovered an affair, you are struggling with family issues, work has become too much, you feel angry all the time and you don’t know why, you are dealing with menopause, infertility or a major life change.

Or maybe you don’t know what is wrong at all. You just know that you don't feel like yourself.

Perhaps you are functioning on the outside while feeling exhausted, anxious, lonely, emotionally overwhelmed or disconnected on the inside.

Whatever has brought you here, you don't have to work it all out by yourself.

We can work it out together.

I am an experienced psychologist, psychotherapist, counsellor and coach and I work with adults both online throughout the UK and internationally and face-to-face near Tidworth on the Hampshire/Wiltshire border.

My approach is warm, practical, hopeful and non-judgemental. I see you as an individual rather than a diagnosis or a set of symptoms.

I see therapy as a developing conversation where we explore what is happening in your life, understand why you may be feeling or reacting as you are, and begin to find ways forward.

Feeling overwhelmed, stuck, lonely or simply not quite yourself? You don't have to work it all out on your own.

Coaching, positive psychology and creating change

Therapy doesn't always have to focus on what's wrong. Sometimes we need to understand what has happened and then look towards what could be possible.

Alongside psychotherapy and counselling, I use elements of coaching and positive psychology to help you recognise your strengths, build on what is already working and create a clearer sense of direction.

We can look at the stories you have been telling yourself and explore whether there might be another way of seeing things. Reframing doesn't mean pretending that difficult things haven't happened or simply “thinking positively”. It means finding a more helpful and compassionate perspective that gives you greater choice in how you respond.

I bring a naturally hopeful approach to my work. Even when life feels stuck, I believe there are usually possibilities that we cannot see clearly when we are overwhelmed.

Sometimes the work is about healing the past.

Sometimes it is about changing what is happening now.

And sometimes it is about asking a bigger question:

“If I stopped living according to what I think I should do, what kind of life would I actually like to create?”

We can turn that question into practical steps to build your confidence, change your habits, set new goals, make decisions and create a new vision for your life.

My aim is to help you leave therapy not only understanding yourself better, but with more hope, more choices and a clearer sense of where you want to go next.

Therapy with Enzo

Sometimes the easiest way to start talking is with a dog beside you.

If the thought of sitting opposite a therapist feels daunting, you may find my approach a little different.

When Enzo (my Jack Russell dog) is with me it is a more relaxed therapeutic environment where his presence can provide warmth, companionship and a natural point of connection.

You don't have to talk about everything straight away.

You don't have to know exactly what you need.

We can simply start with a conversation.

Enzo can be a lovely part of the environment, particularly if you find it easier to relax, talk and be yourself when there is a dog in the room.

Of course, he doesn't have to be in the room if that would suit you better.

Online therapy is also available if being at home feels more comfortable for you.

Therapy with Evelyn and Enzo

“I came to therapy feeling completely stuck and not knowing where to start. I finally understood the patterns that had been holding me back, but more importantly, I learned that I could change them. I feel like I have choices again.”

“I thought there was something wrong with me. Evelyn helped me realise that I wasn't wrong I had simply been trying to cope in ways that no longer worked for me. I understand myself now, I see things differently and I now even like myself!”

You don't have to know exactly what you need

People often come to me saying:

“I don't know what's wrong. I just don't feel like myself.”

“I can't switch my brain off.”

“I'm exhausted from holding everything together.”

“I keep repeating the same patterns.”

“I know I need to make a decision, but I don't know what to do.”

“Something has happened in my relationship and I don't know how to recover from it.”

“I feel lonely even though I'm surrounded by people.”

“I think I might have ADHD.”

“I've reached a point in my life where I need to work out what happens next.”

These are all conversations we can have.

You don't need to arrive knowing where you should start or knowing what you want to talk about.

Our first sessions can simply be about understanding what is happening and deciding what would be most helpful for you.

What happens in therapy?

These phases aren't a fixed programme and we don't move through them in a straight line. We may return to earlier experiences, spend longer exploring something that feels important, or move between different stages as new insights emerge.

1. Initial Exploration: Understanding Your Story
We begin by creating a picture of what has brought you to therapy, what you have been experiencing and what you would like to be different. We talk about your circumstances, relationships, experiences and emotions, without judgement. Together, we begin to understand your story and establish what you want from the work.

2. The Most Pressing Concerns: What Needs Attention Now?
We then focus on what is affecting you most in the present. This might be overwhelming emotions, anxiety, loss of confidence, relationship difficulties, feeling stuck, a difficult decision or simply not feeling like yourself. We work with what feels most important to you, helping to bring some clarity to what can otherwise feel like a tangled collection of thoughts and emotions.

3. Discovering the Underlying Reasons: What Is Beneath the Surface?
Once we have a clearer understanding of what you are experiencing, we can begin to look beneath the immediate concerns. Together, we explore where particular emotions, behaviours and patterns may have come from, how past experiences may still be influencing the present, and why you may respond to certain situations in the way you do. This is often where deeper understanding begins.

4. Reframing: Seeing Things Differently
With greater understanding comes the opportunity to look at yourself and your experiences from a different perspective. We can begin to challenge old assumptions, beliefs and ways of interpreting yourself or what has happened to you. Reframing isn't about pretending that difficult experiences didn't happen; it is about seeing things differently and finding a compassionate way of understanding them.

5. Building Awareness & New Thinking: Creating Different Choices
As your awareness develops, you can begin to recognise patterns as they happen rather than automatically being caught up in them. We explore new ways of thinking, responding and relating to yourself and others. The aim is to develop greater emotional awareness and choice, so that you are no longer simply repeating familiar patterns but can begin to respond in ways that feel healthier and more aligned with who you are.

6. Moving Into the Future: Becoming the Person You Want to Be
As the work progresses, our focus naturally begins to shift towards the future. We look at what you want your life to look and feel like, what you have learned about yourself, and how you can carry that understanding forward. The aim isn't simply to feel better about what has happened, but to move forward with greater confidence, self-awareness and a clearer sense of who you are and what you want.

The goal isn't simply to cope with life as it is. It's to understand yourself well enough to begin creating the life you want to live.

When you've always felt like the “wrong” one

Sometimes the deepest difficulty isn't anxiety, depression or a relationship problem. It is a quiet feeling that there is something wrong with you.

Perhaps you have spent much of your life feeling like the black sheep of the family or the one who was different, too sensitive, too emotional, too independent, too difficult, or simply never quite seemed to fit.

You may have grown up feeling misunderstood, unseen or as though everyone else had received a handbook for life that somehow you missed.

Perhaps you learned to adapt yourself to fit in. To keep the peace. To hide parts of yourself. To become what other people needed you to be.

And although you may now be an accomplished, capable adult, that old feeling can still be there underneath everything:

“Why don't I fit?”
“Why am I different?”
“Why does everyone else seem to know how to do relationships except me?”
“What's wrong with me?”

These experiences can have a profound impact on how we see ourselves and how we relate to other people.

They can influence our attachment patterns, our confidence, our boundaries and the relationships we choose. You may become very sensitive to rejection, work hard to be liked, struggle to trust that people genuinely want you around, or become so independent that you rarely allow yourself to need anyone.

Sometimes our early relationships were simply misattuned to who we were and what we needed emotionally. This doesn't necessarily mean that we had a bad childhood or that our parents didn't love us. But when we repeatedly experience the feeling that who we are doesn't quite fit with the people around us, we can begin to believe that we are the problem.

Therapy can be a place to finally question that story.

Together, we can explore where your feeling of being different or “wrong” came from, how it may still be influencing your relationships and choices, and whether the way you see yourself today still belongs to the past.

You may not need to become more like everyone else.

You may need to understand yourself more deeply, feel more comfortable being who you are, and find relationships and a life in which you no longer have to work so hard to belong.

Therapy that looks at both the past and the present

We can explore how your current circumstances are affecting you, while also looking at whether earlier experiences, attachment styles, relationships or learned expectations and patterns may still be influencing the way you think, feel and respond today.

Understanding yourself can be incredibly powerful.

But I also believe therapy should give you things you can use in your everyday life.

Alongside talking and exploring, we can develop practical tools to help you manage difficult emotions, regulate your nervous system, change unhelpful patterns, improve relationships, build confidence and make decisions.

My aim is not simply to help you understand why you feel the way you do.

It is to help you discover what you can do differently from here.

Coaching, positive psychology and creating change
Therapy doesn't always have to focus on what's wrong. Sometimes we need to understand what has happened and then look towards what could be possible.

Alongside psychotherapy and counselling, I use elements of coaching and positive psychology to help you recognise your strengths, build on what is already working and create a clearer sense of direction.

We can look at the stories you have been telling yourself and explore whether there might be another way of seeing things. Reframing doesn't mean pretending that difficult things haven't happened or simply “thinking positively”. It means finding a more helpful and compassionate perspective that gives you greater choice in how you respond.

I bring a naturally hopeful approach to my work. Even when life feels stuck, I believe there are usually possibilities that we cannot see clearly when our minds feel overwhelmed.

Sometimes the work is about healing the past.

Sometimes it is about changing what is happening now.

And sometimes it is about asking a bigger question:

“If I stopped living according to what I think I should do, what kind of life would I actually like to create?”

We can turn that question into practical steps to build your confidence, change your habits, set new goals, make decisions and create a new vision for your life.

My aim is to help you leave therapy not only understanding yourself better, but with more hope, more choices and a clearer sense of where you want to go next.

What brings people to therapy?

I work with a wide range of difficulties and life experiences, including:

• Feeling “wrong”, unlovable, low self-esteem
  Anxiety, worry and overthinking
  Stress and burnout
  Low mood and feeling emotionally flat
  Low self-esteem and lack of confidence
  Loneliness and feeling disconnected
  ADHD-related difficulties and questions around adult ADHD
  Feeling overwhelmed, scattered or unable to switch off
  Relationship difficulties and repeating relationship and attachment patterns
  Affairs, betrayal and loss of trust
  Separation and divorce
  Family conflict and difficult family relationships
  Parenting difficulties
  Emotional abuse and bullying
  Bereavement and loss
  Trauma and PTSD
  Concussion and traumatic brain injury
  Menopause and major hormonal/life transitions
  Infertility and the emotional impact of fertility difficulties
  Major life changes and transitions
  Difficult decisions and feeling stuck between two choices
  Finding your identity again after children leave home, relationship changes or career changes
  Difficulty achieving goals or knowing what you want
  Creating a new direction or life plan
  Feeling that life has become smaller than you imagined
  Understanding your relationship patterns
  Sometimes the difficulties we experience in adult relationships have roots much earlier in our lives.

The way we experienced relationships as children can influence what we come to expect from other people and from ourselves. We can develop particular attachment patterns around closeness, trust, rejection, conflict and feeling safe with others.

Perhaps you learned to keep people happy, became very independent, found it difficult to ask for what you needed, worried about being rejected, or became particularly sensitive to changes in other people's moods. Perhaps you often feel that you have to work hard to be accepted or that you are somehow out of place.

These experiences can shape adult relationships in ways that are not always obvious. You may find yourself repeatedly choosing similar relationships, becoming anxious when someone pulls away, withdrawing when relationships become difficult, struggling to trust, or feeling that your needs are somehow too much.

Sometimes this comes from what can be described as misattuned attachment which is when the emotional responses we needed from the important people around us weren't consistently there. This doesn't necessarily mean that anyone did anything deliberately wrong. Families can love us deeply while still being unable to understand, respond to or meet all of our emotional needs.

As adults, these early experiences can affect our self-esteem, relationships, boundaries, sense of belonging and our expectations of ourselves and others.

Therapy can help you recognise these patterns without blaming yourself or your past. Together, we can begin to understand where they came from, notice when they are being triggered in your life now, and explore different ways of responding.

The goal isn't to change who you are.

It is to help you feel more secure in yourself, more able to recognise what you need, and more able to create the kinds of relationships in which you can feel seen, valued, connected and at home.

ADHD, overwhelm and feeling different

There is a growing awareness of adult ADHD, and many people are now beginning to recognise themselves in conversations about attention, motivation, emotional regulation, procrastination, impulsivity and overwhelm.

Some people come to therapy after an ADHD diagnosis.

Others are wondering whether ADHD might explain some of the difficulties they have experienced throughout their lives.

And others simply know that their brain seems to work differently from the people around them.

Therapy can provide a space to explore these experiences without judgement.

Whether or not you have a formal diagnosis, we can look at the patterns that are affecting your life and develop practical strategies to help you understand yourself, feel more organised, confident and in control.

Relationships, affairs and betrayal

Relationship difficulties can be some of the most painful experiences we face.

An affair or betrayal can turn your world upside down whether you have discovered your partner's affair, been unfaithful yourself, or are trying to decide what happens next.

The period following discovery can involve shock, anger, grief, anxiety, obsessive thinking, loss of trust and enormous uncertainty.

Sometimes the question is:

“Can we recover from this?”

Sometimes it is:

“Should I stay or leave?”

And sometimes it is:

“Who am I now?”

I offer a confidential, non-judgemental space to work through these questions and understand what you want for your future.

I also work with relationship patterns, separation, divorce, family difficulties and major decisions where there may not be an obvious right answer.

Menopause, infertility and changing identity

There are times in life when our sense of identity, relationships and future can change dramatically.

Menopause can be one of those times.

Changes in mood, sleep, energy, confidence and sense of self can coincide with changes in relationships, work, family life and how we see our future.

Infertility and difficulties around having children can also bring profound emotions — including grief, disappointment, anger, shame, uncertainty and a sense that the life you imagined may be changing.

These experiences deserve somewhere to be talked about openly.

Therapy can help you make sense of what you are feeling, reconnect with yourself and begin to think about what you want your life to look like now.

Loneliness and low self-esteem

You don't have to be alone to feel lonely.

Many people I work with have friends, family, colleagues or partners but still feel disconnected, unseen or as though they don't really belong.

Loneliness can gradually affect confidence and self-esteem, making it harder to reach out, ask for what you need or build the relationships you want.

Together we can explore where these patterns have come from and how you can begin to change them.

Building self-esteem isn't about becoming a different person.

It is about developing a stronger relationship with yourself by understanding your needs, recognising your strengths and becoming more comfortable in taking steps to build a more connected  life.

When life doesn't look how you expected

Sometimes therapy isn't about recovering from one particular problem.

Sometimes it is about realising:

“I don't want to live the next ten years like this.”

You may have reached a stage where you are asking what comes next.

Perhaps your children have grown up, your relationship has changed, your career no longer fulfils you, you are approaching a new stage of life, or you simply feel that something needs to change.

I work with people who want to create a new direction for their lives, whether that means making a difficult decision, changing old patterns, rebuilding confidence, finding purpose or creating a practical plan for what comes next.

Therapy and coaching can work particularly well together here.

We can understand what has brought you to this point, begin to think about where you want to go next and work out the next best steps to get you there.

My approach
I bring together psychotherapy, counselling and coaching depending on what you need.

My work draws on effective therapeutic approaches including CBT, NLP and polyvagal-informed approaches, alongside psychological and emotional exploration.

I am particularly interested in the relationship between our thoughts, emotions, nervous system, and behaviour. And how we can see our lives differently when we increase our awareness of our brain and body.

I like finding practical tools that you can take away from therapy from Day One and continue using long after our sessions have finished.

Sometimes you need space to talk.

Sometimes you need to understand yourself more deeply.

Sometimes you need practical strategies.

And sometimes you need all three.

We will work out together what is right for you.

My experience
I have been a qualified psychologist for nearly 30 years, a certified coach for 20 years and I have been practising as a psychotherapist for twelve years, working in a variety of settings including the NHS, the University of Surrey, Grayshott Medical Spa and private practice.

I have over 20,000 hours of practice experience and have worked with people experiencing a wide range of emotional, psychological, relationship and life difficulties.

I am a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and work within its ethical framework for good practice. I am also a member of the British Psychological Society (BPS).

I have experience supporting people and their families through illness, diagnosis, treatment and recovery. I have also worked on a cancer ward and as part of an award-winning diabetes management team.

I have a particular interest in the psychological impact of concussion and traumatic brain injury.

I also have a special interest in nutritional psychology and the relationship between nutrition, brain health and emotional wellbeing.

A safe and confidential space
Therapy gives you somewhere to talk about the things you may not feel able to say to friends or family.

You can bring the messy thoughts, difficult feelings, relationship problems, uncertainty and questions without having to protect anyone else's feelings.

There is no judgement.

We can slow things down, make sense of what is happening and work out what you need.

I believe people can change.

Your patterns can change.

Your relationships can change.

And sometimes, when circumstances cannot change, we can change the way we meet them.

My role is to walk alongside you while you do that.

Online counselling
I offer online therapy, throughout the UK and internationally, making it possible to have counselling from wherever you feel most comfortable: at home, while travelling, or from a private space that works for you.

For many people, online counselling offers greater flexibility and makes it easier to fit therapy around work, family and everyday life.

The therapeutic relationship is still at the heart of the work.

Whether we meet online or face-to-face, my aim is to create the same warm, confidential and supportive space.

I usually try to offer a first appointment within a week of getting in touch, subject to availability.

Face-to-face counselling on Hampshire/Wiltshire border
I work from a private location near Tidworth, approximately 10 minutes from Andover, Amesbury and Stockbridge.

Free parking and public transport are available.

And, if you would like it, therapy with Enzo (my Jack Russell dog) in the room with us.

Perhaps it's time to talk
You don't have to wait until things become unbearable before asking for help.

You may simply have reached a point where you want to understand yourself better, change something that isn't working, make an important decision or find your way through a difficult period.

If something in my profile has made you think “That sounds like me,” please get in touch.

We can have an initial conversation about what is happening for you and what kind of support might be most helpful.

You don't have to know where to start.

Sometimes the first step is simply having someone to talk to.

Coping with life changes

Personal growth and development

Social skills

Changing patterns in relationships

Making life decisions

Making goals

I'm always happy to have a free 15 minute discovery session on the phone or online.

COUNSELLING SESSIONS (50 minutes)

For individuals:

£65

For couples:

£80

Short Term Programme:

Initial 15 minute phone consultation

Plus

5 sessions

£310 (full price £325)

(Booked and payed for in advance)

COACHING SESSIONS (90 minutes)

£90

Coaching Programme

Initial 15 minute phone consultation

Plus

4 x 90 minute sessions  

£340

(Booked and payed for in advance)



Appointments can can be face to face or on Zoom, FaceTime or WhatsApp video call.

Please do get in touch for more information.

Session time and duration:

Sessions are 50 minutes.

I work with a flexible model which means that your appointments do not have to be at set times, on set days. 

We can switch between in person and online if that works for you.

The number of sessions people come for varies greatly. You can have an initial session and go from there.

A lot can be achieved in either a single session or a few sessions in short term focused therapy or we can work at more depth over a longer period of time if that suits you.