Working with Chris
Who this work is for
Children, adolescents and young people can struggle for many reasons – including anxiety, low mood, school, college and University pressures, friendship difficulties, family changes, or experiences they have not yet been able to process.
Sometimes these difficulties show up in ways that don’t fully make sense to them, or to the adults around them.
Psychotherapy can be helpful when life feels confusing, overwhelming, or stuck.
How the Work Helps
Child and adolescent psychotherapy supports young people to explore their inner worlds at a careful, manageable pace.
Through talking, play, or creative expression, attention is paid to feelings, thoughts, and patterns that may be contributing to distress.
The aim is greater emotional understanding, increased stability, and a stronger sense of identity, supporting healthier ways of responding to life’s challenges.
My Therapeutic Approach
My work is informed by psychoanalytical theory, which focuses on how our earliest relationships shape the way we feel, think, and relate to others throughout life.
From this perspective, difficulties in the present are often linked to earlier emotional experiences that may not be fully conscious, but are still active within us. These experiences can influence mood, self-esteem, behaviour, and relationships, sometimes in ways that feel confusing or out of sync with current circumstances.
In sessions, I pay careful attention to:
how a young person feels in themselves
how they experience relationships now
how they experience the therapy relationship with me
recurring patterns in emotions, beliefs, and behaviour
The aim is not simply to remove symptoms, but to understand what those symptoms may be communicating about underlying emotional life. When these patterns are recognised and thought about, young people often find that troubling feelings become more manageable, relationships become less conflictual, and they have a stronger sense of who they are and feel more stable.
This work is often helpful where difficulties are persistent or recurring, including anxiety, low mood, self-criticism, relationship problems, and emotional or behavioural struggles that do not fully respond to short-term strategies.
Working with Parents and Carers
I have spent many years working closely with parents. I have a particular interest in fatherhood – the emotional experience of fathers, the role they play in the development of their children, and the impact of absent fathers. This is the focus of a book I am currently writing, as well as regular workshops and online groups that I run.
I aim to support parents and carers to better understand their children and to feel more confident and emotionally resourced in their roles.
What working together looks like
Child and adolescent psychotherapy supports young people to explore the internal world they have built up over time since birth. This internal version of reality will shape the way they feel and respond to real life events in the present and how they feel about themselves. We will explore this world through analysis of the unconscious and conscious aspects of the current relationship that the young person develops with me as their therapist over time.
Feedback from Parents
“I have worked with Chris in parent work for the past year. My son was referred due to ongoing issues and I had sessions with Chris while my son had his sessions with another Psychotherapist.
Chris was an excellent communicator and was sympathetic in his questioning. We were able to fully explore issues and his reflective and sympathetic style of questioning enabled me to examine the situation we were in and the factors and issues involved. Chris identified that my son required a further ASD assessment in order to support him. I found the sessions with Chris extremely helpful.”
Parent
Next steps
If you’d like to discuss whether psychotherapy could help your child or teenager, you're welcome to get in touch.
We can arrange an initial meeting to explore your concerns and consider what support might be helpful.