Dr. Maura Abdelall CPsychol, Chartered Counselling Psychologist

About me

At times in life one can find it a struggle to cope with situations that can seem simple and to manage strong emotions such as anger, helplessness, anxiety and worry. As a way to not feel these painful feelings a person may turn to food, alcohol, drugs, violence, sex or gambling. Overtime this can also start to impact our health negatively; like weight, sleep, digestive system, liver, memory etc. Seeing a counsellor can help to talk about painful events and emotions, if you want to improve self-reflection and self-awareness, or perhaps deal with things that you feel are holding you back which you have not resolved.

There is a significant amount of research that has found talking therapy to enable individuals to change their unhelpful ways of thinking, behaving and therefore feeling better able to cope with things in life. This in turn will make it more likely that a person also cares for themselves better- not just mentally but also physically.

In my work, establishing a nurturing and trusting relationship with my clients is important as I believe that it is fundamental to the effectivenes of therapy. My therapeutic work is aimed at providing a safe and trusting therapeutic space in which the client feels able to explore and process deep hidden emotions. The aim of therapy is to arrive at a deeper understanding of oneself and subsequently change, but also acceptance of one self.

I use a combination of Humanistic, Psychodynamic and CBT theories to guide my clinical practice. Therapy is tailored according to each person’s difficulty. Selecting the therapy modality is discussed at the assessment stage, as each person is individual in their presenting difficult and how they wish to work through things.

CBT therapy is aimed at helping individuals learn how their thinking affects their behaviour and emotions and techniques to help with this. CBT therapy is structured and brief therapeutic approach, involving completing tasks (e.g. diary, thought records, questionnaires) in between sessions to test out techniques learned. There is much research that shows that CBT therapy is particularly helpful in treating anxiety disorders (e.g. OCD, panic, phobia).

Psychodynamic therapy is a long term, explorative therapy which focuses on how relational patterns learned in ones early development influence the present relationships. This type of therapeutic approach is seen to be more helpful for treating chronic depression, low-self esteem, emotional dysregulation and childhood trauma.

If you are experiencing anxiety, depression, difficulties in your relationships and feel you would like to speak to someone about this, feel free to contact me for an informal conversation. I work with individuals experiencing a variety of difficulties, including: general anxiety, depression, panic, worry, OCD, relationship difficulties, low self-esteem, stress and sleep difficulties.

My clinic is located in South West London in South Wimbledon, close to Wimbledon central and Colliers Wood. It is within 2 minutes walking distance from South Wimbledon underground station on the Northern Line. Wimbledon train and underground station are located about 5 minutes on the bus 57, 93, 131, 219. Trains from London Waterloo to Wimbledon are frequent and take approximately 20 mins.