HomeApproach
How I work in therapy
I work mainly from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). We start with what is actually happening, what you want to be doing instead, and the steps you can take while the worry is still there.
In your own surroundings, not a consulting room
The consulting room is wherever you are: your home, or a video call. That is how I work. Nobody behaves the same way in an unfamiliar office for an hour as they do in the place where things actually happen to them. I come to your home, or we talk by video call from wherever you are, because that is where the problem lives and where the solution has to hold up.
It shows even more with children: you learn more about how a child organises a task or asks for help by watching it at home than by asking them across a desk. The same goes for families looking after an older relative — memory makes more sense in the kitchen than in a hospital corridor.
If you have moved here from somewhere else, that setting matters for another reason. A good deal of what wears people down in a new country happens at the kitchen table, on the phone to an office that only answers in Spanish, or in a house that has gone quiet. None of that travels well into a waiting room.
The aim is that you understand it, that the people you live with understand it, and that you can live alongside it without it running your week. Hiding it exhausts everyone and changes nothing.
An ordinary setting, clinical rigour
I am a psychologist and neuropsychologist, registered here (Col. M-39091). The tests I use are the standardised ones, and the report I sign is written for the doctor who referred you or for your child's school.
What is informal is the place and the manner: your home, a walk, a video call. What we do inside it has the same backing as it would anywhere else, and I will not put anything to you that I cannot explain the grounds for.
The work happens between sessions
One hour a week does not change a life. What changes it is what happens on the other six days: the conversation you finally have, the plan you do not cancel, the morning you get up when you would rather not. My job is to make sure there is a plan behind that and that we check whether it is working — not to hand it to you finished in a room.
That is why no two plans are the same and why there is no fixed number of sessions. We agree concrete steps, the size you can manage this week, and adjust them against what actually happened — not what should have happened.
About medication
I am not a doctor and I do not assess drug treatment: that is for your doctor or your psychiatrist, and if I think a medical opinion is worth having, I will say so. What I can tell you is what the psychological work adds, which is a different thing and compatible with it: understanding what is keeping this going, and changing what you do with it. Some people work in therapy alone and some combine the two. Neither is the right answer in the abstract, and it is certainly not mine to decide for you.
If you already take something prescribed before you moved here, bring the current list. It is part of the picture, not something to be argued with.
The family counts too
When a child is struggling at school, or an older relative's memory is slipping, whoever lives with them tends to end up with no place at all: not the patient, and nobody explains anything to them either. And yet they are the one making decisions every day.
I explain what is happening in language that can be understood, what can be expected and what cannot, and what to do with that at home. Often the question that brings the most relief is not the patient's: it is from the person beside them who does not know whether to push, wait or say nothing. That conversation can be held entirely in English, including the parts of an assessment that involve the family.
What we do in sessions
What you need the week before an exam is not what you need after an argument at home. We always start with what is in front of you right now: we go through what is happening, agree what would count as a step forward, and review it against what the week was actually like.
You do not need to arrive with clear objectives. We work them out together and change the plan if it stops helping.
Sessions in English or Spanish
Sessions can be held in English throughout — the conversation, the plan and any written report. We settle that when you book and keep to whichever language you can explain yourself in most easily. If it turns out to be a mix of both, that is fine too.