About me
For 17 years, I have helped people who feel anxious, low, self-critical or stuck in painful relationship patterns. You may fear rejection, feel lonely or disconnected, find it hard to trust people, or keep ending up in relationships that leave you feeling unseen. You may put other people’s needs first, withdraw when closeness develops, or struggle to know what you feel and need.
You may look as though you are coping while privately feeling uncertain, self-critical or stuck in patterns that keep repeating. You may have had therapy before, read widely, listened to podcasts or used AI to understand yourself. These things can be helpful, yet understanding a pattern does not always make it easier to change.
I am Dr Nikos Tsigaras, an HCPC-registered Counselling Psychologist. I offer individual psychological therapy in Kensington, London, and online.
I specialise in relationship difficulties, childhood trauma and emotional neglect. You may repeatedly become involved with emotionally unavailable partners, struggle to trust or depend on others, fear rejection, withdraw when intimacy develops, or put other people’s needs before your own.
These difficulties do not always arise from an obviously traumatic childhood. Emotional neglect can be quieter: feelings may not have been noticed, understood or welcomed. As an adult, this can make it difficult to recognise what you feel, know what you need, establish boundaries or remain emotionally present in relationships.
My approach is Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP), informed by psychodynamic and attachment-based thinking. If previous therapy helped you understand your history but familiar patterns remained unchanged, we can work differently: we pay close attention to what happens here and now in the session—feelings, anxiety, bodily responses and the ways you protect yourself from difficult emotion. When a familiar pattern appears between us, we can notice it together rather than only discuss it afterwards. This can help us understand what gets in the way of change and try something different in the moment.
I work with individuals rather than couples. Relationship counselling can still be valuable when undertaken individually, whether you are in a relationship, recovering from one, dating, or trying to understand why similar difficulties keep recurring.
If you work in a demanding professional, business or financial environment, therapy can provide a confidential setting in which you do not need to perform, manage another person’s response or have everything worked out.
My practice is LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergence affirming, culturally sensitive and trauma-informed. I offer therapy in English and Greek.
Training, qualifications & experience
I am an HCPC-registered Counselling Psychologist with 17 years’ clinical experience. My core qualification is a Doctorate in Counselling Psychology. I also hold an MSc in Psychoanalytic Theory and an MSc in Organisational Psychology.
I completed a year-long programme studying the psychoanalytic treatment of trauma at the Tavistock and Portman Clinic. I am also an IEDTA-accredited practitioner of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP).
My approach integrates ISTDP with psychodynamic, psychoanalytic and attachment-based thinking. This allows us to explore not only the history of a difficulty, but also how feelings, anxiety and protective patterns emerge during the therapy session.
I previously worked in the NHS with both common mental-health difficulties and complex, longstanding emotional and relational problems. In private practice, I work with individual adults experiencing anxiety, relationship difficulties, childhood trauma, emotional neglect, self-criticism and persistent emotional patterns.
My MSc in Organisational Psychology also informs my understanding of demanding professional environments, particularly the pressures experienced by people working in business and finance.
I offer therapy in English and Greek and am committed to ethical, culturally sensitive, LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergence-affirming practice.
Member organisations
school Registered / Accredited
Being registered/accredited with a professional body means an individual must have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by their member organisation.
The HCPC are an independent, UK-wide health regulator. They set standards of professional training, performance and conduct for 16 professions.
They keep a register of health professionals who meet their standards, and they take action if registered health professionals fall below those standards. They were created by a piece of legislation called the Health Professions Order 2001.
Registration means that a health professional meets national standards for their professional training, performance and conduct.
British Psychological Society
Areas of counselling I deal with
Other areas of counselling I deal with
Childhood emotional neglect; childhood trauma; relationship trauma; intellectualisation and emotional avoidance; persistent emotional and relationship patterns; difficulties with intimacy, boundaries and emotional availability.
Therapies offered
Photos & videos
Fees
£150.00 per session
Health Insurance/EAP
Additional information
I offer a free 15 minute telephone or Zoom discovery call
I am also registered with BUPA International, Cigna, Cigna Global, WPA, Healix, Allianz, & Aetna. It is usually possible to bill other insurance companies for your sessions provided they meet the threshold of £200 per session.
My fee for self-funders is £150/50m.
When I work
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