It varies more than you might expect. Some people come because something's come off the rails — they've had to take time off, they're making mistakes, a performance review has flagged things they can't quite explain. Some come because of conflict at home, a partner telling them they're working too much or that even when they're there, they're not really there.

Sometimes it's actually something positive — I love my work, I also love other things, and I don't know how to hold both. And sometimes people come with family things — a bereavement, a relationship breakup, repetitive family conflict — where they just need a way of figuring out how to get through.

There's not a hard line between any of those. There's not really a line at all.

Here's a simple way of understanding it.

Most of us carry patterns — ways of being, relating to people and the world — that were formed long before we entered the workplace. Family dynamics, what we learned about love and help and self-worth growing up, sometimes things that go back further than that: loss, migration, trauma passed down through generations. I use a therapeutic method called constellations work is a way of making those patterns visible — sometimes through conversation, sometimes through mapping relationships physically in the room using space and body and movement — so that you can actually see what's been running under the surface. Once this is done we use these insights to bring space, movement and strength that supports the change you want to bring.

I now teach this work at the Centre for Systemic Constellations, the foundational school that brought this approach to the UK, alongside senior psychotherapists. It's serious, rigorous work, underpinned by a practical conceptual framework drawing on several therapeutic traditions. In my experience, once a client can see the pattern, a lot of the work is already done. The realisation itself starts the movement.

I am trained as a systemic and leadership coach, and hold the highly respected Professional Certified Coach (PCC) accreditation with the International Coaching Federation, whose code of ethics I follow.

I am also trained in systemic therapy with a specialism in systemic constellations. I'm on the teaching faculty of the Centre for Systemic Constellations, where I teach alongside senior psychotherapists, primarily to therapists learning the approach.

I am trained in NLP (Master Practitioner Certification with Richard Bandler, the co-creator of NLP), meditation, and trauma.

I am a member of a supervision group (comprising psychotherapists and coaches) run by the senior Gestalt Psychotherapist Judith Hemming. I engage my own ICF accredited coach for my own professional development.

I also run a busy and successful law practice — still leading teams, still in court, still on the coalface.. Not only do I love my law work, I also feel it’s important to keep living and performing at the highest professional level and practising what I teach. This way my coaching work remains grounded in practical reality and the challenges that my clients face.

No, definitely not!

My clients include lawyers, but also people in diverse kinds of helping professions: marketing, planning, transport, property, environment, and creative consultancies and public service — and people going through significant personal transitions that have nothing to do with their profession at all.

The common thread isn't the industry. It's the dynamic. If your work involves offering your expertise in service of someone else, the patterns that get activated tend to be quite similar, whatever your field. And if you're carrying something personal — a bereavement, a family rupture, a moment that's made you stop and ask bigger questions — that's equally valid as a reason to get in touch.