About me
Hello, I'm a counsellor and psychotherapist working online and in North London.
If you've ever felt like you think and feel at a slightly different frequency to most people around you like 'too much', 'too sensitive', 'too in your head', 'too something' this might be a good place to land.
I work with people who are creative, curious, and often psychologically self-aware. People who feel things deeply. Who have probably already read a lot, thought a lot, and still find themselves stuck in patterns they can't quite shift from the outside. People who are drawn to understanding themselves; not just managing symptoms, but making genuine sense of who they are and why.
My approach is rooted in Psychosynthesis and informed by transpersonal psychology which means I'm interested in you as a whole person, not just your presenting problem. We might work with imagery, parts of yourself that are in conflict, the body, creativity, or the stories you've been living inside without realising it. I bring my background as an artist into the room. I bring my experience as a parent into the room. I also bring lived experience of neurodivergence which shapes both how I work and who I tend to connect with.
Therapy with me isn't about being fixed. It's about being understood possibly more fully than you've allowed yourself to be before.
Counselling & Psychotherapy With Me
People come to me at all kinds of moments. Sometimes there's a clear reason like anxiety that won't settle, a relationship that keeps breaking the same way, burnout that's crept up quietly, a loss. Sometimes it's less defined; maybe a sense that something has shifted, or stopped fitting, or that the version of yourself you've been presenting to the world isn't quite the whole picture.
I work with adults navigating:
- Anxiety, overwhelm, and the particular exhaustion of a mind that won't switch off
- Low self-worth, shame, and an inner critic that's louder than everything else
- Relationship patterns - especially the ones that repeat
- Identity questions - who you are beneath the roles you've taken on
- Neurodivergence and the emotional landscape that comes with it
- Grief, loss, and the disorientation of life transitions (becoming a parent)
- Addiction and self-soothing patterns
- Depression and emotional flatness
- Early experiences and how they shape the present
- Spirituality and questions of meaning
- Some people come for focused, shorter-term work. Others want to go deeper over time into patterns, into the past, into parts of themselves that haven't had much space before. Both are welcome.
If any of this feels like it's for you, you're welcome to reach out for an initial conversation - therapy@sarahodonovan.co.uk
Training, qualifications & experience
I hold a Postgraduate Diploma in Psychosynthesis from the Psychosynthesis Trust, London. A rigorous, depth-oriented training that sits at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, and the study of human potential. I am a BACP Accredited member and am currently working towards UKCP accreditation.
Before training as a therapist I studied design and worked as an artist, a background that remains active in how I work, not just biographical. I bring visual thinking, creative process, and an intuitive relationship with image and metaphor into the therapy room.
Alongside my private practice I work for a charity delivering empowerment programmes with preteens; work I find grounding and genuinely meaningful.
I have completed MBSR training and have a particular interest in trauma, attachment, and how our early environments shape who we become. My approach is trauma-informed and relationally focused.
I also hold a black belt in Tae Kwon Do which probably says something about my relationship with discipline, the body, and showing up consistently.
Member organisations
BACP is one of the UK’s leading professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy with around 60,000 members. The Association has several different categories of membership, including Student Member, Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP, Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Accred) and Senior Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Snr Acccred). Registered and accredited members are listed on the BACP Register, which shows that they have demonstrated BACP’s recommended standards for training, proficiency and ethical practice. The BACP Register was the first register of psychological therapists to be accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). Accredited and senior accredited membership are voluntary categories for members who choose to undertake a rigorous application and assessment process to demonstrate additional standards around practice, training and supervision. Individual members will have completed an appropriate counselling or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but they won’t appear on the BACP Register until they've demonstrated that they meet the standards for registration. Student members are still in the process of completing their training. All members are bound by the BACP Ethical Framework and a Professional Conduct Procedure.
Accredited register membership
The Accredited Register Scheme was set up in 2013 by the Department of Health (DoH) as a way to recognise organisations that hold voluntary registers which meet certain standards. These standards are set by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).
This therapist has indicated that they belong to an Accredited Register.
Areas of counselling I deal with
Therapies offered
Fees
£80.00 per session
Concessions offered for
When I work
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Further information
My Approach
My work is rooted in Psychosynthesis; a depth-oriented approach that treats the challenges you bring not as problems to be managed, but as invitations. Invitations to understand yourself more fully, to integrate the parts of you that have been in conflict, and to connect with something that feels more genuinely you.
This isn't therapy that works on the surface. It's collaborative, exploratory, and sometimes goes to uncomfortable places and not for the sake of it, but because that's usually where the interesting stuff is.
I'm interested in who you are beneath the roles, the coping strategies, the identities you've been assigned or adopted. What you actually feel, want, and need underneath all of that.
What we might explore together
- Who you are beneath the labels, roles, and expectations that have accumulated over time
- How emotions move through you; especially if you experience life intensely or as a highly sensitive person
- Early experiences and the relational patterns they've left behind
The parts of yourself in conflict like the inner critic, the pleaser, the one who shuts down - Shame, self-worth, and the story you carry about whether you're enough
- Questions of meaning, purpose, and what you're actually here for
How we work
Depending on what you need, we might work with:
- Parts work - getting to know the different aspects of yourself that are in tension
- Guided imagery and visualisation (when needed) - using imagination as a way into what words sometimes can't reach
- Creative and somatic exploration (an invitation) - drawing, writing, or noticing what's happening in the body
- Mindfulness and presence - slowing down enough to actually feel what's there
Therapy with me is not about fixing yourself. It's about understanding yourself and from that understanding, finding more freedom in how you live and relate.
