Anything becomes impossible the moment it becomes an obligation, including the things you love, therapy included. This is called a persistent drive for autonomy, and the word "opposition" misses completely what is happening. That is why direction and pace stay with you here, and anything I suggest between sessions is a proposal, not a task.
This is for you if
Do not start with me if
You are in crisis right now
If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, do not start with me. Call 999, or Samaritans on 116 123, free and around the clock in the United Kingdom. The place here stays open afterwards.
Someone is sending you to make you more cooperative
If a partner, a parent or an employer sent you here to become more compliant, tell me and I will tell them plainly that this is not what I do. I do not work on increasing compliance. If we start, we start for something you want, otherwise the first demand in the therapy is me.
You are looking for a formal assessment
I do not diagnose and I do not assess. With the PDA profile it is more complicated still: in many places it is not formally recognised as a separate diagnosis, and adult assessment is hard to find. I will tell you honestly what is and is not possible, and I work with you without paperwork.
You need rigid structure and someone to set you tasks
There are therapists who work that way and for some people it works. For you, very probably, a plan with weekly homework and agreed objectives will trigger precisely the reaction we are trying to understand. If that is what you are looking for, I am not the right fit, and I would rather say so now.
What this looks like day to day
You were about to tidy the kitchen. Someone says, in a perfectly normal tone, "could you tidy the kitchen?". And in that second it is over, you cannot, even though you wanted to. From the outside it looks like stubbornness. Inside, an alarm has gone off saying that if you do it now, it is no longer your choice.
You promised a friend a cake. Nobody is pressing you, nobody is checking. And yet, from the moment it was promised, it became an obligation, and the obligation locks up exactly like the ones from outside. This is the part other people find hardest to understand: you do not escape your own demands either.
The doctor, the dentist, therapy. You wanted it, you arranged it yourself, and it still knots your stomach for days beforehand: a fixed time, a place, someone expecting you. Health systems are among the hardest things for people with a PDA profile to carry, and usually nobody takes that into account.
What we do together
It is not "will not". It is "cannot", and that difference changes everything.
The starting point is that the avoidance is not a choice. It is a nervous-system alarm set off by the loss of autonomy, hormones in the body and all, and once it is lit it does not resolve through willpower. That is why rewards and consequences have never worked on you: they address a decision, and there is no decision here.
So we do not work on making you more compliant. We work on three things. The anxiety underneath, because that is the engine. Recognising the demands, including the hidden ones, the implied ones and the ones you place on yourself, which are usually the hardest. And finding the shape in which a necessary thing can be done without going through the alarm: with choice, with options, with wording that does not land like an order, with renegotiation and no shame in it.
How I work is as important here as what we work on. I do not set you homework. I do not fix objectives for you to sign off. I do not press subjects you steer around, because pressing is itself a demand. You can move the time, you can cancel, you can say halfway through a session that you do not want to talk about this, and none of that goes down as resistance. A plan you make is your demand; one I hand you is mine, and that is the kind that locks up.
What I draw on: polyvagal work, for the alarm in the body. Internal Family Systems, for the part that guards your autonomy, which is not an enemy but a guard that had its reasons. Schema Therapy, for what formed in the years you were called difficult. And Person-Centred practice, which here is not a matter of style but a condition of the thing working at all.
The psychometric questionnaires
The questionnaires: when you want, if you want.
On the other pages it says they arrive before the first session or straight after. Here I put it differently, because a pack of questionnaires sent to an account is, precisely, a set of demands, and if we start there we risk finishing before we begin.
So: I set up your account in the client area, I tell you what is in it and what each one is for, and you fill them in if and when you want. I do not track whether you have done them and I do not ask at every session. Half-finished is fine; the draft saves and you can come back without starting over.
What would be useful, whenever you like: a questionnaire about demand avoidance, which separates a need for autonomy from what usually gets called oppositionality, one about autistic traits, one about camouflaging, and one about emotional regulation. Many people open the PDA one and just sit reading the items, because it is the first time anyone has described this without it sounding like an accusation.
They are not an exam, they hand down no verdict, and they do not replace an assessment. They are also not a condition of working together. You see the results too, in your own account.
The first few months
The opening conversation, 30 minutes, free
On Google Meet. No form to fill in beforehand, no questions you have to answer. You can ask everything and say almost nothing about yourself. If you change your mind on the day, write to me or do not, it is not a problem.
The first session
I do not have a plan for it. We talk about what you want, including nothing in particular. If you would rather I told you what comes next, I will; if you would rather not know, that is not wrong either.
How we set the rhythm
This is a real difference from how I work elsewhere: you set the rhythm, and it can change. Weekly, fortnightly, or case by case. A fixed hour in the calendar is support for some people and a demand to be carried all week for others. You tell me which you are.
The first few months
We look at what lights the alarm and how fast, at what you have tried, and at where you have managed to do things without it going through the alarm, because you have, and that is where the most useful information sits. No written objectives unless you want them.
What we work on further
The anxiety underneath, the exhaustion of a life of constant negotiation, and the relationships in which you were read as difficult. Plus practical things: how to ask for an adjustment at work, how to get through a medical appointment, how to tell someone close what helps you and what locks you up.
How we know it is working
Two short questions at the end of sessions, if you want to fill them in. The sign I look for is not that you do more things, it is that the alarm lights less often and goes out faster.
How long it takes
I cannot promise you a number and I will not give you a deadline. And if you stop for a while and come back in six months, that is not a failure and I will not ask you to explain it.
Questions people ask me
It is, and that is the most honest thing I can tell you. A fixed time, someone expecting you, questions. That is why we build it differently: you set the rhythm, you can move it, you can cancel, you can turn up and say you do not want to talk about anything in particular. What I will not do is press you and then call your reaction resistance.
Yes, and that is the situation for most adults. The PDA profile is not recognised as a separate diagnosis in many places, and adult assessment is rare. We work with how you function, not with a label.
Not unless you ask for it. And if you ask for it and then do not do it, we do not discuss why you did not do it, we discuss what lit up when you looked at it.
Yes. Cancellations are information, not misconduct. If it happens often, we look together at what triggers it, and it is entirely possible that the answer is a different way of meeting rather than more discipline.
Because a reward or a consequence speaks to a decision, and with you there is no decision. The alarm goes off first, on the loss of autonomy, and no prize puts it out. Often it makes it worse, because it adds an expectation.
They sit in your account in the client area, the two of us see them, and you can reread them whenever you like. They do not reach your GP or your employer unless you ask in writing. The details are on the privacy page.
A standard session is £80 for 50 minutes. Reduced rate of £50 for Romania and Eastern Europe. The opening conversation is free, 30 minutes.
One small step
None of what follows is a demand. You choose, or you choose nothing.
What clients say
“He has a flexible approach and adapts to my needs and state in the moment, and therapy flows in a natural, unforced, free way — even though behind the relaxed conversation he maintains focus on therapeutic objectives and processes.”
PDA — Persistent Drive for Autonomy
Anything becomes impossible the moment it becomes an obligation, including the things you love, therapy included.
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