​Ian is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with over 25 years' experience in a variety of settings including the NHS, charity and private sectors.

About me

As an undergraduate I developed an interest in the radical psychiatrist RD Laing and his approach to understanding and treating mental illness. After completing my degree I moved to London, where I lived in one of the Arbours Association’s residential therapeutic communities. This experience led me to go on to complete my psychotherapy training with the Philadelphia Association, the charity Laing established in 1965. It continues to offer a unique and alternative, open-minded approach to psychotherapy. On completion of my training, I went on to work as a house therapist for ten years in one of the Philadelphia Association’s residential therapeutic communities in North London.
 
I currently maintain well established private psychotherapy practices in Brighton and London where I see adults for individual psychotherapy. I continue to base part of my practice within the charity sector in London.
 
I am committed to making psychotherapy accessible to all sections of the community, and I bring this commitment to my practice alongside the depth and breadth of my skills and experience as a psychotherapist.

My approach to therapy

Beginning therapy is a significant moment, one that takes courage. Whatever has brought you here, your decision to seek support is itself an act of care toward yourself, and I want to meet it with the same thoughtfulness and respect.

We each grow up inside a particular world -  shaped by family, community, society, and history. These form the lens through which we see ourselves and others, and much of what we take to be simply real has, in fact, been handed to us. The assumptions we carry about who we are, what is possible, what can be felt or spoken often remain unexamined because they feel so self-evident.
 
My practice offers a safe space in which these certainties can be gently questioned. What has been deemed unthinkable, unsayable or simply too difficult to face can, with time, begin to find room to breathe. This is not a process of fixing or correcting, but of coming into a more honest relationship with your own experience.
 
Some people arrive with particular concerns; difficulties in relationships or sexuality, anxiety, depression, a loss of meaning or direction, conflicts at work or at home. Others come with no specific problem but a sense that something is not quite right, or simply a wish to understand themselves better. Whatever brings you, we would work together to make sense of what is actually going on for you, in your life as you are living it.
 
Beginnings matter. When we first meet I don’t have any insight into what it is like to be you, in your world. From my side, the beginning is a time of careful, unhurried attention. Together, we begin to explore what has brought you to therapy, what you are hoping for, and what would feel meaningful to change or understand. 

The therapeutic relationship itself begins to form in these early meetings. For some people, a sense of ease and trust develops quickly; for others, it takes more time to settle. Occasionally, despite genuine effort on both sides, the fit may not feel quite right. Finding the right therapist matters.

I bring more than my training and experience into the room. I bring myself, my capacity for reflection, my attentiveness, and my understanding that the quality of our relationship is not incidental to the work, but central to it. My particular approach works in its own way, but what I hold as essential is this: meeting you with care, respect, and a full commitment to ethical and professional practice.