Victoria O'Callaghan
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This professional has no current availability for new clients. Please enquire with them directly to discuss availability.
This professional has no current availability for new clients. Please enquire with them directly to discuss availability.
About me
Everyone needs support
It might relate to a diagnosis like anxiety, depression or an eating disorder. Perhaps a bereavement, break-up or job loss has left you feeling lost and low. You might have feelings you don't understand or are struggling to manage day to day living. Perhaps you need someone warm and compassionate to help you make sense of past traumatic experiences and mental pain.
Whether you seek support for feelings of anxiety, depression, stress, help with experiences of trauma or the losses shading our lives, I offer a therapeutic service that can help you cultivate the self-awareness needed for lasting change. I can help you make sense of your experiences and develop new ways of living fully.
An opportunity to know yourself more deeply
I believe therapy gives us a space to put aside the demands of life and reflect on what matters most to us. Working with me is an invitation to explore current difficulties, past experiences and longings to live more authentically. We think together about how you feel, any patterns and feelings of stuckness, and how these might be protecting you from pain.
While there is no one-size fits all approach to feelings of stuckness or distress, more multidisciplinary research evidences how psychological problems can have roots in early experiences. We will spend time exploring these together, potentially making links between past experiences and present challenges, developing a therapeutic relationship suited to your needs.
Working together
As a psychodynamic and psychoanalytically-oriented practitioner, I have deep respect and compassion for the unconscious patterns, narratives and beliefs we develop in early life. Working psychodynamically means respecting the unique and unexpected influences these have on our lives. With curiosity we can understand how these attempts at protecting ourselves might be blocking our efforts to live creative, fulfilling lives.
Learning how to live
My practice involves being alongside you as you discover your capacity for living fully as yourself. I provide a safe, reflective space where you can become curious about what this means for you.
My practice is based on three values:
Curiosity: Being open-minded, non-judgemental and inquisitive about our experiences.
Connection: Recognising the bonds we have to others and how interrelatedness affects us all.
Courage: Appreciating the strength it takes to explore difficult experiences in the hope of freeing ourselves from their influence.
I hope that our work together will help you cultivate these, learning to use them when grappling with the complex challenges and joys of being alive in a rich and diverse world.
Ways of working together
Psychological issues are common and there are different ways to approach them. Some can benefit significantly from shorter-term therapy (30 sessions or so) while others may be better suited to longer term, open-ended work.
I work online and in-person. We will meet either once or twice a week, at the same time, for 50 minutes.
Training, qualifications & experience
My experience and specialisms
I work with people from all walks of life who are experiencing difficulty, specialising in working with questions around sexuality, shifting gender identities, relationship diversity, chronic illness and the feelings of confusion and loss that colour times of transition in our lives.
I specialise working with gender, sexuality and relationship diversity (GSRD), particularly with LGBTQIA+ individuals. I have experience in supporting people through gender-affirming surgery and changing hormone regimens.
I am also very experienced in being alongside creative professionals and young adults navigating the challenges and opportunities for growth accompanying the complex task of growing up. I am also experienced in fertility-oriented health issues including infertility, PCOS, endometriosis, perimenopause and menopause, as well as supporting expectant and new parents as they adjust to being parents.
My path to practice
I am qualified as a psychodynamic psychotherapist. I trained at Birkbeck University on the MSc in Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy. I attended Goldsmiths University to complete my foundation training.
I am currently training in the Foundation in Group Analysis (group therapy) with the Institute of Group Analysis. I am also training in Mentalisation-Based Therapy (MBT) with the Anna Freud Centre in London.
I have an MA in History of Medicine from University College London in collaboration with the Wellcome Collection. I specialised in examining intersections between international healthcare policy and social activist responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s. I received my BA from Edinburgh University, studying History and specialising in gender, sexuality, and medieval women's healthcare practices.
Other qualifications
- Mental Health First Aid (2020)
- Teaching qualification in pregnancy and post-natal yoga - Yoga Campus (2018)
- Teaching qualification in yoga for anxiety and depression - Yoga Campus (2018)
- Teaching qualification in mental health basics for yoga teachers - Yoga Campus (2018)
- 200-hour yoga teacher qualification to teach vinyasa yoga to adults - Yoga London (2015-2016)
I currently am an Associate Therapist at the Albany Trust in London. I have also been a Bereavement Counsellor for Cruse Bereavement Care, where I worked via telephone with people experiencing grief related to bereavement and loss of all kinds.
In my previous career as I service designer I was the UK Health and Wellbeing Lead for a global design consultancy. I worked as part of a small team providing 1-to-1 support, listening services and small group workshops for individuals requiring mental health support for a variety of reasons.
We also created training materials and interactive sessions on different aspects of mental health and wellbeing intended reduce stigma related to mental health issues in the workplace. This included establishing mental health ‘speakeasies’ where participants shared psychosocially-rooted experiences in a non-judgemental setting.
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
Free initial telephone or online session
Concessions offered for
Additional information
We will discuss fees and suitable time to meet every week during our assessment. We will discuss and agree these before therapy starts. My fees are negotiable based on your circumstances and I have a small number of spaces for concessions.
When I work
Please contact me for online and in-person availability.
