The three things rarely fail separately
People usually come with one problem and a fairly firm theory about what is causing it. The theory is often reasonable and almost never complete. Sleep that broke two years ago is now a concentration problem and a relationship problem. A grief that had nowhere to go has become a stomach that does not settle. The pieces get treated one at a time, by different people, and the picture never quite comes together.
I work the other way round. A biopsychosocial frame means your mind, your body and the environment you are living in are examined together, because that is how they actually operate. It is a slower first session and a faster course of work.
Method
Sessions draw on cognitive behavioural therapy, emotion-focused methods and mindfulness, with nutritional psychology where it is genuinely relevant rather than as a matter of routine. Some sleep and stress work uses VR-supported relaxation to settle the nervous system before the harder part of a session.
The work is structured and mostly time-limited. We agree what we are trying to change, and roughly how long it should take. If it is not working, that is a thing to notice out loud and act on, not a thing to persist with quietly.
Research
My research into the gut microbiome began as a question about mood and ended up as a body of practical work about food: what feeds the bacteria that produce your neurotransmitters, what cooking destroys, and why we refuse foods that look wrong to us. That work runs through the Food Lab, and it informs counselling wherever energy, mood and eating are tangled together.
It is psychology, not medicine. I do not prescribe diets or supplements and I make no diagnostic claims.
The Book
I write as well as practise. State. Not Situation is about the gap between how a situation feels and what it is. I am interested in how exhaustion, hunger and the absence of safety shape what seems true before you have had a chance to weigh it. The method in the book is the method I use in sessions.
Boundaries
I do not prescribe or advise on medication. I do not provide psychotherapy in the sense of the Luxembourg psychotherapist authorisation. I do not offer crisis or emergency cover. Where I see severe depression, active trauma, psychosis, high suicide risk or complex personality difficulties, I refer to a psychiatrist or an authorised psychotherapist, and I support that transition rather than simply ending the work.