Find Your Path to Healing
A gentle guide to understanding which kind of support
might help you most right now.
🇮🇪 Samaritans Ireland
Call 116 123 — free, available 24/7, no judgement.
🇮🇪 Pieta House
Call 1800 247 247 — free, 24/7, specialising in suicide & self-harm crisis support.
🇮🇪 Crisis Text Ireland
Text HELLO to 50808
🇬🇧 Samaritans UK
Call 116 123 — free, 24/7. | Crisis Text: text SHOUT to 85258
🇬🇧 PAPYRUS / CALM
PAPYRUS (under 35): 0800 068 41 41 | CALM: 0800 58 58 58
🚨 Emergency services
Call 999 or go to your nearest A&E if you're in immediate danger.
Seek a felt sense of relief through imagination
Before you can feel relief in your life, your brain needs to know what it feels like. Close your eyes and vividly imagine — even for 30 seconds — a moment of peace, warmth, being held. Visualisation isn't delusion; it's neurological rehearsal.
Self-compassion first
Acknowledge the thoughts without shame: "I notice this thought is here. This pain is real. I am not broken for feeling this." Research shows self-compassion — not self-discipline — is what makes change possible.
Anchor to one tiny thread of aliveness
Spirituality, connection, a person, a song, an animal, a memory — find the smallest thing that slightly resonates with being alive and focus on it as much as you can tolerate. You don't need to believe a lot. Just this one thread.
DBT — Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
Specifically designed for intense emotional pain and suicidal ideation. It gives you concrete skills: distress tolerance, emotional regulation, mindfulness. Look for a DBT therapist or skills group in Ireland or the UK — or ask your GP for a referral.
Expressive Arts Therapy — when speaking feels impossible
When pain is at its most intense, words can feel completely inadequate or impossible. Expressive arts therapy offers another language — image, sound, movement — that can hold what speech cannot. This can be a meaningful bridge, and requires no artistic ability whatsoever.
🇮🇪 Pieta House
Free counselling for those experiencing suicidal ideation or self-harm. Call 1800 247 247 or visit pieta.ie
🇬🇧 PAPYRUS / CALM
PAPYRUS (under 35): 0800 068 41 41 | CALM: 0800 58 58 58
Could somatic therapy help?
When pain is this embodied, the body often holds what words can't reach. Somatic trauma therapy — when you're not in acute crisis — can help your nervous system find safety from the inside out.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callImagine the connection you need — vividly, specifically
Picture being truly seen by someone. Let it be vivid and real. Your nervous system doesn't fully distinguish between imagination and experience — rehearse it. Your brain will begin wiring toward what you practise.
DBT — interpersonal effectiveness
DBT's interpersonal module teaches how to ask for what you need, set limits, and build real relationships — not just survive them.
🇮🇪 Samaritans / Alone Ireland
Samaritans: 116 123 | Alone (older adults): 0818 222 024
🇬🇧 Mind / Samaritans
Mind: mind.org.uk for local services | Samaritans: 116 123
Somatic therapy for relational wounds
Loneliness and relational pain live in the body. Somatic work can help rewire your nervous system's patterns around connection and safety with others.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callTreat hope as an experiment
You don't have to feel it. Just try it on: "What if things could get better?" Notice any tiny evidence that contradicts the hopeless story. Your mind will find what it looks for.
Phil Stutz's Life Force framework
Psychiatrist Phil Stutz (of the Netflix documentary Stutz) offers a deceptively simple framework: exercise, sleep, nutrition, and connection to the unconscious. These basics, done consistently, are among the most powerful interventions for hopelessness and depression.
Consider a GP referral for medication
If hopelessness has been persistent for months, your GP can refer you for psychiatric assessment — through the HSE (Ireland) or NHS (UK). Medication isn't defeat — it can lift you enough to do the work.
DBT — behavioural activation
When hopelessness locks you in place, small actions — even when you don't feel like it — change brain chemistry in measurable ways. Action can precede feeling.
Paul Shin Therapy
When hopelessness feels stuck in the body — frozen, collapsed, heavy — somatic trauma therapy works at exactly that level.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callDBT Distress Tolerance skills
TIPP, ACCEPTS, PLEASE — DBT gives you a concrete menu of tools for exactly these moments. Structured, practical, and evidence-based.
Self-compassion over self-criticism
Overwhelm often arrives alongside a voice saying you should be managing better. Self-compassion practice — directly countering that voice — reduces distress more effectively than many interventions.
Somatic regulation
When the system is overwhelmed, thinking your way through it often doesn't work. Body-based regulation — slow breathing, grounding, gentle movement — works from the bottom up.
Somatic Trauma Therapy — Paul Shin
If overwhelm lives in your body — racing heart, collapse, freeze — somatic therapy helps your nervous system learn regulation from the inside out.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callInner child work
If this has been there since childhood, the wound is usually pre-verbal and relational. Inner child work — in therapy or through practices like journaling — can reach what cognitive approaches can't.
NARM — NeuroAffective Relational Model
Specifically designed for complex developmental trauma and survival adaptations. Addresses the deeper question: "Why does part of me not want to be alive?" — without shame and without retraumatising.
GP referral — Ireland & UK
Chronic low mood lasting years often has a biological component. Your GP (HSE or NHS) can refer you for psychiatric assessment and explore whether medication might meaningfully shift your baseline.
Somatic Trauma Therapy — Paul Shin
Long-standing survival patterns live in the body. My somatic approach works with exactly this — the body's adaptations to early relational pain.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callJoin something structured
Clubs, classes, volunteering, spiritual communities, peer support groups — structured regular contact is the most reliable way to build connection. It doesn't have to be perfect; just consistent.
🇮🇪 Ireland resources
Aware (depression & anxiety peer support): aware.ie | Grow Mental Health: grow.ie (free weekly peer groups nationwide)
🇬🇧 UK resources
Mind peer support: mind.org.uk | Rethink Mental Illness: rethink.org
DBT Interpersonal Effectiveness
If connection has been painful or hard, DBT's interpersonal module teaches practical skills: asking for what you need, navigating conflict, maintaining relationships.
CBT — Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
The gold standard for learning to identify and shift unhelpful thought patterns. Structured, practical, and skills-focused. Available free via the HSE SilverCloud programme (Ireland, GP referral needed), NHS Talking Therapies (UK), or private therapists.
DBT — Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
CBT's more emotion-focused cousin. Adds distress tolerance, mindfulness, and interpersonal skills. Particularly effective if emotions feel intense or hard to manage.
🇮🇪 Ireland: HSE SilverCloud (free, GP referral needed)
Ask your GP for a SilverCloud referral — free 6–8 week online CBT programme. More info: hse.ie/silvercloud-cbt
🇬🇧 UK: NHS Talking Therapies (IAPT)
Self-refer for free CBT/DBT-based therapy: nhs.uk/mental-health
MBSR — Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
Jon Kabat-Zinn's structured 8-week programme. Strong evidence for anxiety, stress, and low mood. Teaches practical mindfulness skills you can use independently — available in-person across Ireland and the UK, and online.
Not connecting with these?
If CBT feels too "in your head" — if you know what to do but still can't do it — that's often a sign the body is involved. Somatic or trauma-informed approaches may be the missing piece.
Paul Shin Therapy
If skills alone aren't working — if your nervous system won't cooperate — somatic trauma therapy may be exactly what's needed.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callNARM — NeuroAffective Relational Model
Specifically developed for complex developmental trauma (CPTSD). NARM works with the nervous system's survival adaptations — the ways you learned to cope that once protected you but now limit you. Trauma-informed, body-inclusive, doesn't require reliving the past.
Psychodynamic / Psychoanalytic Therapy
For those who want to understand the psychological architecture of their patterns — how early relationships became templates, how the unconscious shapes behaviour. Slower, deeper, and particularly valuable if you're curious about yourself.
Expressive Arts Therapy — when words aren't enough
Trauma is often stored below language — in images, sensations, and body memory that verbal therapy can't fully reach. Expressive arts therapy uses visual art, music, movement, and writing as therapeutic tools — not to create something "good," but to give form to what hasn't yet found words. No artistic skill required. This is Paul Shin's specialist area, and can be woven into somatic trauma work directly.
Inner Child Work / IFS
Reaching the younger parts of you that still carry unmet needs. Can be done in therapy (IFS, schema therapy) or through personal practices like journalling and visualisation.
Somatic Trauma Therapy — Paul Shin
Developmental trauma lives in the body. My approach integrates somatic awareness with relational understanding — reaching patterns that talk-therapy alone often can't access.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callPsychodynamic Therapy
Explores how unconscious patterns and relational templates shape current life. Often involves looking at relationships — including the therapy relationship itself — as a mirror.
Gestalt Therapy
Present-focused and experiential. Rather than analysing the past, Gestalt works with what's happening right now — in the body, in the room, in the relationship. Excellent for becoming more aware of patterns as they happen.
Automatic Writing / Journalling
Unstructured stream-of-consciousness writing accesses layers of thinking below your "edited" self. Many people discover patterns they didn't consciously know were there.
Why somatic approaches work here
When trauma is stored in the autonomic nervous system, cognitive approaches often hit a wall. You can understand your trauma completely and still freeze. Somatic work addresses the level where trauma actually lives.
Titrated, safe processing
Somatic trauma therapy moves at the nervous system's pace — gradually expanding what you can feel and tolerate, without flooding you. The goal is building capacity, not catharsis.
Expressive Arts Therapy — when words aren't enough
Trauma is often stored below language — in images, sensations, and body memory that verbal therapy can't fully reach. Expressive arts therapy uses visual art, music, movement, and writing as therapeutic tools — not to create something "good," but to give form to what hasn't yet found words. No artistic skill required. This is Paul Shin's specialist area, and can be woven into somatic trauma work directly.
This is exactly what Paul Shin Therapy offers
Somatic trauma therapy — working with the body's held patterns, your nervous system's survival responses, and the deeper relational imprints that talk-therapy alone often can't reach.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callSomatic Therapy
Body-centred approaches (Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy) work with the nervous system's activation and deactivation patterns directly — rather than trying to think your way to regulation.
CBT / behavioural approaches
If stress is primarily driven by unhelpful thought patterns or behaviours, CBT can provide structure and tools. Often most effective in combination with somatic work.
Paul Shin Therapy
Somatic trauma therapy is a powerful support even for situational stress and burnout — helping your nervous system reset its baseline and build greater resilience.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callSSP — Safe and Sound Protocol
Developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges (Polyvagal Theory), SSP is a non-invasive acoustic therapy — filtered music that trains the middle ear and directly stimulates the vagal system, shifting your nervous system toward greater safety and openness. Available through certified providers. Ask about accessing SSP through Paul Shin Therapy.
RRP — Rhythm Regulation Protocol
A complementary body-based programme working with rhythmic movement and sound to support nervous system regulation. Also available through trained providers.
Self-regulation practices
Yoga, breathwork, TRE (Trauma Release Exercises), somatic movement, and body-based mindfulness can all be practised independently and have meaningful effects on nervous system regulation.
Access SSP & RRP through Paul Shin
I'm a certified provider for these protocols. We can work with them in whatever way feels right for you — including with minimal direct therapy involvement if that's your preference.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callGestalt Therapy
Present-focused, experiential, and relational. Gestalt works with what's happening in the here and now — in your body, in your awareness, in the therapeutic relationship — as a live laboratory for change. You learn to notice and interrupt patterns in real time, not just understand them intellectually.
Somatic awareness
Combining Gestalt with body awareness is particularly powerful — noticing where patterns show up physically, and using that as a doorway to change.
IFS / Parts Work
Pairs beautifully with Gestalt — while Gestalt works with present-moment awareness, IFS gives you a map of the internal cast of characters generating your patterns. Together they offer both real-time awareness and deeper understanding of what's driving the pattern.
Psychodynamic / depth work
If you also want to understand why the patterns formed, pairing Gestalt with some psychodynamic exploration gives you both depth and present-moment tools.
Paul Shin Therapy
My somatic approach integrates present-moment body awareness — working with what's happening in the nervous system right now, which complements Gestalt beautifully.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callIFS — Internal Family Systems (Parts Work)
IFS is one of the most powerful approaches for shame and self-criticism. It works with the inner critic as a protective "part" — not to silence it, but to understand what it's protecting and what the wounded parts underneath actually need. The self-compassion this generates is embodied, not just conceptual.
Self-Compassion Practices
Research (Dr Kristin Neff) shows self-compassion is more effective than self-esteem for depression and shame. Not "be kinder to yourself" as a platitude — specific practices that rewire the inner relationship.
Phil Stutz's "Tools" approach
Featured in the Netflix documentary Stutz, his framework for working with the shadow and inner critic is practical, visual, and surprisingly powerful for people who've found traditional therapy intellectually frustrating.
NARM (if developmental trauma is present)
If the shame traces back to early relational experiences, NARM works specifically with survival adaptations — helping you identify and shift the ways you unconsciously organise your sense of self.
Expressive Arts Therapy — the language of younger parts
Inner child work and expressive arts are a natural pairing — younger parts of us often don't speak in adult language. Drawing, collage, music, movement, or spontaneous writing can access these parts in ways that talking about them simply cannot. Paul Shin integrates expressive arts with somatic and parts work.
If you're LGBTQ+ and/or neurodivergent
The inner critic in LGBTQ+ and ND people has often been shaped by years of external messages that something is fundamentally wrong with you. This isn't generic self-criticism — it's internalised rejection. IFS is particularly powerful here: the inner critic that developed to pre-empt others' judgement needs to be understood in that context, not just challenged.
Somatic work for shame
Shame is felt in the body — the collapse, the contraction, the wanting to disappear. Somatic trauma therapy can work with these embodied shame responses directly.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callCBT — Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Directly targets rumination — teaching you to identify cognitive distortions, interrupt the loop, and replace with more accurate thinking. Available free via HSE SilverCloud (Ireland, GP referral needed) or NHS Talking Therapies (UK).
Automatic Writing / Journalling
Unstructured stream-of-consciousness writing (20 minutes, no stopping, no editing) externalises the rumination and often reveals what's really underneath it. Many find the loop loses its grip once it's on paper.
MBCT — Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
Specifically designed for recurrent depression and negative rumination. MBCT teaches you to recognise rumination cycles early and disengage from them — not by suppressing thoughts, but by changing your relationship to them. Strong evidence base for preventing depressive relapse.
Aerobic exercise
Multiple studies now show aerobic exercise is comparable to antidepressants for mild-to-moderate depression and directly reduces rumination. Not a nice-to-have — a neurobiological intervention.
GP referral — medication evaluation
If rumination is severe or persistent, your GP can refer you through the HSE (Ireland) or NHS (UK). SSRIs in particular can reduce the "stickiness" of negative thoughts.
When CBT doesn't work
If you know the rumination is irrational but still can't stop it — that's usually a sign the body is keeping it going. Somatic work addresses this at the level of the nervous system, not just the thoughts.
Paul Shin Therapy
When rumination persists despite insight, somatic trauma therapy works with the underlying nervous system dysregulation that keeps the loops running.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callStart with the basics — Phil Stutz's "Life Force"
Sleep, movement, nutrition, reducing isolation. Stutz argues these four domains are so foundational that almost any mental health issue improves when they're addressed. Unglamorous, but consistently powerful.
GP referral — Ireland & UK
A vague but persistent sense that something's wrong is worth a GP assessment — to rule out biological depression, thyroid issues, or other physiological contributors. Free through the HSE or NHS.
Psychodynamic therapy — open inquiry
If you're curious and want to understand yourself, psychodynamic therapy is designed for exactly this kind of open exploration — no need to have it figured out before you start.
Expressive Arts Therapy — when something is there but won't be named
Expressive arts therapy is particularly well-suited to the "something's off but I can't say what" experience — it works with what hasn't yet found language. A drawing, a piece of music, a spontaneous movement can surface things that months of talking sometimes can't. Paul Shin specialises in this approach.
Somatic body check-in
Sometimes "I don't know what's wrong" is the mind's translation of something the body is holding. Somatic awareness practices can help surface what hasn't yet reached language.
Paul Shin Therapy
When you can't name it, the body often can. My somatic approach works well for people who sense something without being able to articulate it — meeting you wherever you are.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callDBT — adapted for ADHD/autism
DBT's distress tolerance and emotional regulation skills translate well to ND profiles, especially when delivered by a therapist who understands neurodivergence. The structure suits ADHD; the clarity suits autistic processing styles.
IFS / Parts Work
Internal Family Systems is particularly powerful for neurodivergent people who've developed strong inner critics or "manager" parts to mask and cope. Working with these parts — rather than fighting them — can be transformative.
Somatic / interoception work
Many autistic and ADHD individuals have reduced interoception — difficulty sensing internal body states. Somatic work that gently builds body awareness can significantly improve emotional regulation from the bottom up.
Expressive Arts Therapy — for when verbal processing is exhausting
Many neurodivergent people find verbal therapy inherently demanding — translating inner experience into spoken language is work in itself. Expressive arts therapy bypasses this: you work through visual art, music, movement, or writing, without needing to narrate. This can dramatically lower the cognitive and social load of therapy. Paul Shin offers this as part of his practice.
Mindfulness — adapted, not standard
Traditional mindfulness can be challenging for ND profiles (hyperactive minds, sensory issues with sitting still). Movement-based mindfulness, sound-based practices, or very short structured sessions tend to work much better.
Paul Shin Therapy
Somatic trauma therapy is particularly well-suited to neurodivergent nervous systems — working with your actual physiology, not against it.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callSomatic Experiencing / body-based therapy
For ND sensory overwhelm, top-down (talking) approaches often can't reach the level where the problem lives. Somatic work that titrates sensory input and builds nervous system capacity is far more effective.
SSP — Safe and Sound Protocol
Originally developed partly for autism, SSP uses filtered music to regulate the auditory-vagal connection. It's one of the few interventions with evidence specifically for sensory processing and nervous system dysregulation in ND profiles. Ask about accessing SSP through Paul Shin Therapy.
Rest and demasking — not just "self-care"
ND burnout recovery requires genuine unmasking and rest — not productivity in disguise. This often needs to be explicitly part of the therapeutic work.
Paul Shin Therapy — SSP & Somatic Work
SSP was developed with neurodivergent nervous systems in mind. This may be one of the most relevant tools for where you are right now.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callIFS / Parts Work
The "masking" self is often a protective part that developed to keep you safe. IFS is extraordinarily useful here — helping you understand and appreciate what masking was for, while gradually building access to your authentic self underneath.
ND-affirming therapy
Look specifically for therapists who describe themselves as neurodivergent-affirming — who understand that the goal is not to make you more neurotypical, but to help you thrive as you are.
Community
Connecting with other late-diagnosed or ND-identifying people can be profoundly validating in a way therapy alone cannot provide. Online communities, local groups, and ND-specific organisations in Ireland and the UK can be powerful.
Paul Shin Therapy
A somatic approach to identity work — reconnecting with your body and authentic self, not just understanding masking intellectually.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callTrauma-informed ND-affirming therapy
You need both lenses simultaneously — a therapist who understands trauma and neurodivergence, and doesn't pathologise ND traits as trauma symptoms (or vice versa).
NARM — adapted for ND profiles
NARM's focus on nervous system survival adaptations translates well to neurodivergent trauma — particularly where early experiences of not being understood or accepted created deep relational wounds.
Somatic work — titrated carefully
Sensory sensitivities mean trauma work for ND people needs to be particularly carefully paced. Somatic approaches that follow the nervous system's lead (rather than pushing) are especially important here.
Paul Shin Therapy
Somatic trauma therapy that respects your nervous system's pace — particularly relevant when ND and trauma are both part of your picture.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callCBT for anxiety
The most evidence-based first-line approach. Teaches you to identify anxiety-maintaining thoughts and behaviours, and gradually challenge them. Highly effective for GAD, social anxiety, health anxiety, and panic. Available free via NHS Talking Therapies (UK) or HSE SilverCloud (Ireland).
MBSR — Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
Jon Kabat-Zinn's 8-week programme has strong evidence for anxiety. Teaches you to relate differently to anxious thoughts and body sensations — not eliminate them, but stop being ruled by them. Available in-person and online in Ireland and the UK.
IFS / Parts Work
Anxiety is often a protective "part" — an internal system trying to keep you safe. IFS works with the anxiety rather than fighting it, asking: what is this part afraid of? What is it protecting? This often reaches layers CBT can't.
Somatic work
If anxiety lives strongly in the body — chest tightness, shallow breathing, gut tension — somatic approaches work with the physical anxiety response directly, not just the thoughts about it.
Polyvagal-informed practices
Understanding your nervous system states (safe/social, fight-flight, freeze) and learning to deliberately move between them — through breath, movement, sound, and social engagement — is one of the most practical tools for chronic anxiety.
If you're also neurodivergent
Anxiety in ND people often has a significant sensory and interoceptive component — the nervous system is reading sensory input as threat. Standard CBT for anxiety often has limited effectiveness here; somatic and polyvagal-informed approaches tend to work considerably better.
Paul Shin Therapy
When anxiety is held in the body and won't respond to thinking alone, somatic trauma therapy works at the level of the nervous system itself.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callIFS / Parts Work
Anger is often a "protector" part in IFS terms — guarding something more vulnerable underneath. Parts work is exceptionally well-suited to anger because it doesn't pathologise the anger but gets curious about its role. What is it protecting? What would it need to stand down?
Somatic work — discharge and regulation
Anger has a physiological component — it's energy that wants to move. Somatic approaches work with the body's anger response directly: titrated activation, safe discharge, and building the capacity to feel anger without being flooded by it.
DBT — emotion regulation
DBT's emotion regulation module addresses anger specifically — identifying triggers, reducing vulnerability, and changing emotional responses. Particularly useful when anger is causing problems in relationships.
MBCT / mindfulness
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy builds the "pause" between trigger and response — the space where choice becomes possible. Particularly useful for reactive anger.
Expressive Arts Therapy — for emotions that need to move
Anger is energy — it wants to discharge, not be discussed. Expressive arts therapy (especially movement and mark-making) provides a structured, safe container for that energy to move through, rather than being suppressed or talked around.
Psychodynamic / relational therapy
If anger has a long history — particularly if it connects to early experiences of injustice, powerlessness, or not being heard — depth therapy can reach the roots in a way skills-based approaches can't.
Paul Shin Therapy
Somatic trauma therapy works with anger at the body level — helping your nervous system process and release what it's been holding, rather than just managing symptoms.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callPolyvagal-informed therapy
Understanding your nervous system's threat responses — and learning to work with them rather than against them — is often the most direct path when both anxiety and anger are present. Both are "fight-flight" expressions; the nervous system is simply stuck in activation.
IFS / Parts Work
In IFS terms, an anxious part and an angry part are often in relationship with each other — one protecting the other. Parts work can map this dynamic clearly and begin to shift it at the root.
MBSR / MBCT
Mindfulness-based approaches build the capacity to observe emotional states without being swept away by them — creating space between stimulus and response for both anxiety and anger.
Somatic work
When both anxiety and anger are present, the body is usually very activated. Somatic therapy works directly with the physiological level of these states — building regulation capacity from the ground up.
Paul Shin Therapy
Somatic trauma therapy is particularly effective for chronic nervous system activation — addressing both anxiety and anger at the level where they actually live.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callEFT — Emotionally Focused Therapy
The most evidence-based approach for couples in distress. EFT works with the attachment dynamics underneath the conflict — helping both partners identify and express their deeper emotional needs, and move out of pursue-withdraw cycles. Strong evidence base; roughly 70–75% of couples show significant improvement.
Gottman Method
Research-based couples therapy developed from decades of observational research on what makes relationships work. Focuses on building friendship, managing conflict constructively, and creating shared meaning. Particularly practical and skills-oriented.
Somatic couples work
When conflict involves flooding (being overwhelmed and unable to think), physiological regulation becomes essential. Somatic-informed couples therapy addresses the nervous system activation that makes productive communication impossible in the heat of the moment.
🇮🇪 Ireland: Accord
Accord Catholic Marriage Care Service offers affordable couples counselling throughout Ireland: accord.ie
🇬🇧 UK: Relate
The UK's largest couples therapy provider, with centres nationwide and online options: relate.org.uk
Paul Shin Therapy
Interested in working on your relationship dynamics? Get in touch to discuss what might be most helpful.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callEFT — Emotionally Focused Therapy
EFT is particularly powerful for distance and disconnection — it works directly with the attachment bond, helping couples rediscover emotional accessibility and responsiveness. Many couples who feel like roommates find genuine reconnection through EFT.
Gottman Method
Gottman's research identifies the "Four Horsemen" that predict relationship breakdown and offers specific antidotes. The approach rebuilds the friendship and fondness that underpin intimacy.
🇮🇪 / 🇬🇧 Couples retreats & intensives
Some couples benefit from an intensive format — a full day or weekend of therapy rather than weekly sessions. Ask a couples therapist whether this might suit you.
🇮🇪 Ireland: Accord | 🇬🇧 UK: Relate
Paul Shin Therapy
Get in touch to explore how somatic and relational approaches might support you and your partner.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callGottman Method — Affair Recovery
Gottman has specific protocols for affair recovery, based on research into what actually predicts successful repair. The process has three stages: atoning, attunement, and attachment. It's not quick, but it's structured and evidence-informed.
EFT for trauma
Betrayal creates a trauma response in the attachment system. EFT-informed trauma work addresses this specifically — helping the injured partner process the trauma while helping both partners understand the dynamics that contributed.
Individual therapy alongside
Both partners often benefit from individual therapy running parallel to couples work — processing what this has stirred up personally, without it all needing to happen in the room together.
🇮🇪 Ireland: Accord | 🇬🇧 UK: Relate
Paul Shin Therapy
Individual somatic trauma therapy can be a powerful support when processing relational betrayal — reach out to discuss what might help.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callIndividual therapy — relational focus
Individual therapy with a relational or attachment lens helps you understand your own patterns, attachment style, and triggers — what you bring to the dynamic. This is often transformative even without the partner present.
IFS / Parts Work
Understanding your own internal landscape — the part that pursues, the part that withdraws, the part that people-pleases — changes how you show up in the relationship in concrete ways.
Attachment-informed therapy
Understanding your attachment style (anxious, avoidant, disorganised, secure) and how it interacts with your partner's is often the single most clarifying insight couples can get — and you can start this work individually.
If separation may be ahead
If you're unsure about the future of the relationship, individual therapy also helps you get clear on what you actually want — not what fear or guilt is dictating. In Ireland and UK, mediation services are available if separation does become the path.
Paul Shin Therapy
Individual somatic therapy with a relational focus — understanding and shifting your patterns from the inside out.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callSystemic / Family Systems Therapy
Looks at the family as an interconnected system — patterns, roles, alliances, and unspoken rules that have often been passed down across generations. Doesn't place blame on any individual; works with the whole dynamic.
Structural Family Therapy
Focuses on the structure of the family — hierarchies, boundaries, and subsystems (e.g. parental, sibling). Helps reorganise unhelpful structures that are causing distress.
Narrative Therapy
Helps family members examine and rewrite the stories they hold about themselves and each other — separating "the problem" from the person, and opening space for new narratives.
🇮🇪 Ireland: Tusla / Family Resource Centres
Family therapy available through Tusla-funded Family Resource Centres nationwide. Also: Family Therapy Association of Ireland: ftai.ie
🇬🇧 UK: AFT (Association for Family Therapy)
Find an accredited family therapist: aft.org.uk
Paul Shin Therapy
Get in touch to discuss how individual or family-systemic work might support your situation.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callFamily systems / Bowen Theory
Murray Bowen's framework maps how families function as emotional units — differentiation of self, triangles, sibling position, multigenerational transmission. Understanding this map is often profoundly clarifying for adults trying to make sense of their family of origin.
Psychodynamic / Object Relations
Explores how early family relationships became internalised as templates — how your "inner family" shapes your expectations, responses, and relationship patterns today.
IFS / Parts Work
Many internal "parts" were formed in direct response to family dynamics — a part that placated an angry parent, a part that became invisible to stay safe. IFS maps and works with these parts directly, without needing the actual family members present.
NARM (if developmental relational trauma)
If family dynamics included neglect, emotional unavailability, or abuse, NARM specifically addresses how those early relational environments shaped your nervous system and sense of self.
Paul Shin Therapy
Somatic trauma therapy informed by relational and family systems understanding — working with what your family left in your body and nervous system.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callIndividual therapy — grief & boundaries
Processing estrangement requires space for grief, anger, guilt, and ambivalence — often simultaneously. Individual therapy with a non-judgmental therapist who doesn't push reconciliation is essential.
Family systems understanding
Understanding the system you came from — its rules, roles, and dynamics — often brings enormous clarity about why things unfolded as they did. This isn't about blame, but about making sense of it.
IFS / Inner family work
Even without contact, you carry your family internally. IFS can help process the complex feelings toward estranged family members — including the parts of you that still love them, still grieve them, or are still angry.
🇮🇪 / 🇬🇧 Stand Alone (UK charity for estrangement)
The leading organisation for people experiencing family estrangement — resources, community, and support: standalone.org.uk (also supports those in Ireland)
Paul Shin Therapy
Somatic trauma therapy can work with the deeply embodied impact of family estrangement — the grief, the relief, and everything in between.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callAttachment-informed therapy
Attachment theory is the most robust framework for understanding relational patterns. Your attachment style — formed in early relationships — shapes how you relate to everyone. Understanding and gradually shifting this is transformative.
IFS / Parts Work
Relational patterns are almost always driven by internal parts — a part that attaches too fast, a part that pushes people away before they can leave, a part that becomes small to keep others comfortable. IFS maps and works with these parts directly.
NARM (if developmental origins)
If these patterns trace back to early relational experiences, NARM addresses the nervous system adaptations that drive them — not just the thinking about them.
Schema Therapy
Schema therapy identifies the deep core beliefs about self and others (schemas) that were formed in early relationships and keep being activated. Particularly powerful for chronic relational patterns.
Paul Shin Therapy
Somatic and relational trauma therapy — working with the patterns at the level of the nervous system, where they actually live.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callGender-affirming therapy — non-negotiable
Look explicitly for therapists who describe themselves as gender-affirming or trans-competent. This means they work with your gender identity, not toward changing it. In Ireland and the UK, ask directly: "Are you gender-affirming?" A good therapist will welcome the question.
Minority stress model
Trans and non-binary people face significantly elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and trauma — not because of their gender identity, but because of the social environment. A good therapist understands this distinction clearly and doesn't pathologise the identity.
IFS / Parts Work
Parts work can be powerful for gender identity — especially for people who've developed strong "hiding" or "performing" parts to survive in an unsupportive environment, or for processing the complex feelings that can accompany any stage of gender exploration.
Expressive Arts Therapy — exploring identity without words first
Gender identity and sexuality can be explored through image, colour, movement, and metaphor long before they need to be named or explained. Expressive arts therapy creates space for that pre-verbal exploration — without the pressure of having to articulate something still forming. No artistic skill needed; this is therapeutic process, not performance.
Somatic therapy — affirming & carefully paced
Somatic therapy asks you to bring awareness to your body — which can be complicated if you experience gender dysphoria. Standard somatic approaches need to be adapted for trans clients: starting from areas of the body that feel safer, using language that doesn't assume a relationship to your body you don't have, and always following your lead. In the hands of a trans-affirming somatic therapist, this work can actually be deeply helpful — building a relationship with your body on your own terms. But it requires a therapist who understands this nuance.
SSP — a gentler entry point
The Safe and Sound Protocol works through sound and doesn't involve direct body contact or intensive body-focused attention — making it a more accessible starting point for nervous system regulation when body-focused work feels complex.
🇮🇪 Ireland
LGBT Ireland: lgbt.ie — support line & counselling referrals | Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI): teni.ie
🇬🇧 UK
Mermaids (under 25): mermaidsuk.org.uk | Gendered Intelligence: genderedintelligence.co.uk | LGBT Foundation: lgbt.foundation
A conversation about fit
If you're wondering whether somatic trauma therapy could work for you — given your relationship with your body — I'd welcome that conversation honestly. There's no pressure, and "this might not be the right fit" is a completely valid outcome.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callLGBTQ+-affirming therapy — essential
Ensure any therapist you work with is explicitly LGBTQ+-affirming. Conversion practices — in any form — are harmful and in some jurisdictions now banned. You deserve a therapist who celebrates who you are, not one who is merely neutral about it.
Identity exploration — psychodynamic / person-centred
Open-ended, non-directive therapy works well for identity exploration — a space to discover rather than to fix. Person-centred and psychodynamic approaches create room for complexity and ambiguity without pushing toward any particular outcome.
Processing internalised shame
Most LGBQ+ people carry some degree of internalised homophobia or biphobia — absorbed from culture, religion, family, or peers. This often operates below conscious awareness. IFS and somatic work can reach these internalised voices in ways that purely cognitive approaches often can't.
🇮🇪 Ireland
LGBT Ireland Helpline: 1800 929 539 (free, Mon–Fri) | lgbt.ie
🇬🇧 UK
Switchboard LGBT+ Helpline: 0800 0119 100 | LGBT Foundation: lgbt.foundation
Paul Shin Therapy
An affirming space to explore who you are — at whatever pace feels right for you.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callTrauma-informed LGBTQ+-affirming therapy
The minority stress model understands LGBTQ+ mental health distress as a response to social conditions — not an inherent feature of LGBTQ+ identity. A therapist who holds this framework will never conflate your identity with your trauma.
Somatic work for chronic stress
Minority stress accumulates in the body — hypervigilance, chronic activation, the constant low-level monitoring of safety. Somatic therapy works directly with this nervous system residue, helping discharge what's been held and build greater capacity for safety and rest.
EMDR for specific incidents
If specific traumatic incidents are part of your picture — hate incidents, family rejection, conversion attempts — EMDR can process these directly and effectively.
If you're also neurodivergent
ND+LGBTQ+ people carry compounded minority stress — masking in two dimensions simultaneously. Standard therapeutic approaches for minority stress often don't account for this. Look for therapists who explicitly hold both lenses, and seek out queer ND community spaces where neither dimension needs to be explained.
Community as medicine
Connection with other LGBTQ+ people who understand your experience without explanation is genuinely therapeutic — not a substitute for therapy, but a complement to it that no individual therapist can fully replicate.
🇮🇪 Ireland: ShoutOut | 🇬🇧 UK: LGBT Foundation
Paul Shin Therapy
Somatic trauma therapy in an affirming space — working with what minority stress has deposited in your nervous system.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callLGBTQ+-affirming couples therapy
Same-sex and queer relationships have their own dynamics — and deserve a couples therapist who doesn't apply a heteronormative lens. EFT and Gottman both have strong applicability; the key is a therapist who is genuinely informed about LGBTQ+ relationship realities.
Family-of-origin work
Family rejection — or partial, conditional acceptance — is one of the most painful LGBTQ+ experiences. Individual therapy can help you process the grief, anger, and complicated love involved, and find your footing regardless of whether reconciliation is possible.
Chosen family & community
Building chosen family is a profound and valid life path. Therapy can support the intentionality this requires — and process the grief for what biological family hasn't provided.
🇮🇪 LGBT Ireland | 🇬🇧 LGBT Foundation
Both organisations offer counselling referrals, support lines, and community connections: lgbt.ie | lgbt.foundation
Paul Shin Therapy
An affirming space to work through relational complexity — whatever form your family and relationships take.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min call🌈 Trevor Project (international resource)
World's largest suicide prevention organisation for LGBTQ+ young people. Crisis line, chat, and resources: thetrevorproject.org
🇮🇪 LGBT Ireland Helpline
Free, confidential. Staffed by LGBTQ+ people who understand: 1800 929 539 | lgbt.ie
🇬🇧 Switchboard LGBT+ Helpline
0800 0119 100 — run by LGBTQ+ volunteers | LGBT Foundation: lgbt.foundation
LGBTQ+-affirming therapy — not optional
A non-affirming therapist can cause genuine harm when you're in this place. Please look specifically for therapists who are explicitly LGBTQ+-affirming and have experience with minority stress and identity-related trauma.
Minority stress & identity-based trauma
The suicidal pain connected to identity is often a trauma response to rejection, invalidation, or years of hiding. Trauma-informed, identity-affirming therapy can work directly with this — not the identity, but the wounds around it.
Community as life support
Connection with affirming LGBTQ+ community — people who don't need you to explain yourself — is not a nice-to-have. It is genuinely protective. Even one affirming relationship changes outcomes meaningfully.
Paul Shin Therapy
An affirming space where your identity is the starting point, not the subject of debate.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callCrisis lines — standard but important
🇮🇪 Samaritans: 116 123 | Pieta House: 1800 247 247
🇬🇧 Samaritans: 116 123 | CALM: 0800 58 58 58
Note: if phone calls are overwhelming, text lines may be easier — text HELLO to 50808 (IE) or SHOUT to 85258 (UK).
ND-specific crisis considerations
If you're non-speaking or find verbal communication very difficult when overwhelmed, crisis text lines are available. Some autistic people also find it helpful to have a pre-written "crisis card" they can show to someone trusted — prepared in a calmer moment.
ND burnout recovery — not standard advice
Standard mental health advice ("exercise, socialise, get out of the house") can actively worsen ND burnout. Recovery requires genuine reduction of demands, sensory accommodation, demasking, and rest that looks different from neurotypical rest. This needs to be understood by anyone supporting you.
Reduce demands — radically if needed
ND burnout recovery is not a quick fix. It often requires significant reduction of obligations and expectations for weeks or months. This is not weakness — it is neurological necessity.
ND-affirming therapist
A therapist who pathologises your ND traits or pushes neurotypical coping strategies will make things worse. Look explicitly for ND-affirming therapists — those who understand that the goal is not to make you more neurotypical.
SSP — nervous system support without demand
The Safe and Sound Protocol requires very little active effort — you listen to filtered music. For someone in burnout, this low-demand approach to nervous system regulation can be a meaningful starting point.
Paul Shin Therapy
Somatic trauma therapy paced to your nervous system — not a neurotypical template. SSP available as a gentle starting point.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callAutigender & non-binary identity
Many autistic people experience gender in ways that don't fit binary categories — sometimes described as "autigender." This isn't confusion or a symptom; it's a valid expression of how neurodivergent people often experience identity in more fluid, less socially-scripted ways. A good therapist will understand this distinction.
Double masking — twice the burnout
Masking neurodivergence takes enormous energy. Masking queerness takes enormous energy. Doing both simultaneously — which many ND+LGBTQ+ people have done for years — creates a particular kind of burnout that doesn't resolve with standard interventions. Recovery requires unmasking in both dimensions.
Late diagnosis in both dimensions
Many people discover they are both neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ relatively late — sometimes simultaneously. This "double late diagnosis" can trigger a profound identity reckoning and grief for the years spent not knowing. This deserves dedicated therapeutic space.
ND-affirming + LGBTQ+-affirming therapy — both, not one
You need a therapist who genuinely holds both lenses. A therapist who is LGBTQ+-affirming but doesn't understand neurodivergence will miss half the picture — and vice versa. It's worth searching specifically for therapists who explicitly name both.
IFS — multiple layers of "parts"
IFS is particularly well-suited to this intersection: mapping the parts that masked ND traits, the parts that hid queerness, the parts that are exhausted, and the parts that never got to simply exist. Working with all of these simultaneously, in relationship to each other, is where IFS really shines.
Somatic work — carefully adapted
For ND+LGBTQ+ people, somatic therapy needs to navigate both sensory sensitivities (ND) and potential body-related discomfort (gender dysphoria or body shame from being queer in a hostile environment). In the hands of a therapist who understands both, somatic work can be transformative — reaching what neither cognitive work nor identity-exploration alone can access.
Community that holds both
Queer ND community spaces exist and are growing — online and increasingly in person in Ireland and the UK. Being in spaces where you don't have to mask either dimension is genuinely therapeutic. Autistic Queer Alliance is one such resource.
Paul Shin Therapy
A space where both your neurodivergence and your LGBTQ+ identity are understood and affirmed — not explained away or treated as symptoms.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min callA multimodal therapeutic approach
Expressive arts therapy draws on visual art, music, movement, drama, poetry, and writing as therapeutic tools — used intermodally, which means moving fluidly between modalities as the work calls for it. A session might begin with drawing, move into movement, and end with a few written words. The therapist follows the process, not a script.
Not art therapy — wider
Expressive arts therapy is distinct from single-modality art therapy. It's rooted in the work of Paolo Knill and the European Graduate School tradition — using the full range of artistic languages as a way of being with and transforming experience.
Why it works — the low skill principle
Expressive arts therapy actively works with "low skill" — deliberately simple, unpolished creative acts that bypass the inner critic and allow something more genuine to surface. The less technically "good" the output, often the more therapeutically alive it is.
Preverbal & early trauma
Experiences that happened before language — or that were too overwhelming to process verbally — often find their way out through image and movement before they can be spoken. Expressive arts combined with somatic trauma work is a particularly powerful approach to early relational wounds.
When talk therapy has stalled
If you've done therapy before and feel like you've reached a ceiling — you understand your patterns intellectually but nothing is shifting — expressive arts often opens a new door. It accesses different neural pathways than verbal processing.
Identity exploration
Gender, sexuality, cultural identity — these can be explored through image, colour, metaphor and movement long before they need to be named. Particularly valuable for LGBTQ+ people and for anyone navigating a significant identity transition.
Neurodivergent people
Many ND people find verbal therapy exhausting — translating inner experience into spoken language is cognitive work on top of the therapeutic work. Expressive arts removes that layer, allowing engagement that feels more natural and less demanding.
Children & adolescents
Expressive arts is a natural medium for younger people who don't yet have the verbal or conceptual framework to "do therapy" in a traditional sense.
Grief, loss & transition
Some losses are simply too large for words. Expressive arts creates a container for grief that holds more than language can.
Somatic + Expressive Arts — an integrated approach
Paul Shin brings together somatic trauma therapy and expressive arts therapy — working simultaneously with the body's held experience and with creative expression. These two approaches are deeply complementary: somatic work notices what lives in the body; expressive arts gives it form. Together, they can reach what neither achieves alone.
This is what Paul Shin Therapy offers
Expressive arts therapy integrated with somatic trauma work — a genuinely different kind of therapeutic experience, for those for whom words have never quite been enough.
Find out moreBook a free 15-min call