specialist recovery support
You are not the problem. You never were.
Specialist therapy for adults recovering from narcissistic abuse in romantic relationships or family dynamics. Face-to-face in Leeds and Horsforth, and online across the UK.
It was not a normal relationship
Narcissistic abuse is a pattern of relating built on control, manipulation, and the systematic erosion of your sense of self. It can happen in romantic partnerships, within family systems, or between a parent and child. The common thread is a dynamic where your reality, your feelings, and your needs were consistently overridden, dismissed, or used against you.
You may have experienced cycles of idealisation and devaluation, gaslighting, emotional withholding, blame-shifting, or silent treatment. Over time, these patterns can leave you doubting your own perceptions, walking on eggshells, and losing touch with who you are outside of the relationship.
What makes narcissistic abuse so disorienting is that it often happens alongside moments of warmth, charm, or apparent closeness. This inconsistency is not a sign that the good parts were real and the rest was your fault. It is part of the pattern itself.
The relationship ended. The effects did not.
Many people who have experienced narcissistic abuse find that the impact extends well beyond the relationship itself. You may notice persistent self-doubt, difficulty trusting your own judgement, hypervigilance around the emotions of others, or a deep sense of shame that feels difficult to explain.
You might struggle with anxiety, emotional numbness, intrusive thoughts about the relationship, or a pull to replay events trying to make sense of what happened. Sleep may be disrupted. Concentration may feel impossible. You may feel both exhausted and unable to rest.
These are not signs of weakness. They are the natural responses of a nervous system that has been shaped by chronic emotional harm. Your mind and body adapted to survive an environment that was not safe, and those adaptations do not simply switch off once the relationship ends.
When the harm began at home
For some people, narcissistic abuse did not begin in adulthood. It began in childhood, within the family. Growing up with a parent whose needs, image, or emotional state dominated the household can leave deep marks on how you relate to yourself and to others.
You may have learned early on that your feelings were inconvenient, that love was conditional, or that your role was to manage someone else's emotions at the expense of your own. You may have been the scapegoat, the golden child, the peacekeeper, or the invisible one. Each of these roles carries its own cost.
As an adult, you might find it difficult to set boundaries, to recognise your own needs, or to trust that relationships can be safe and reciprocal. You may carry guilt about distancing yourself from family, or confusion about why something that looked normal from the outside felt so harmful from within.
Therapy offers a space to name these experiences without judgement, to grieve what was missing, and to begin untangling the beliefs about yourself that were shaped by someone else's limitations.
Leaving is not the same as healing
People around you may have expected that once the relationship ended, you would feel better. You may have expected that yourself. But narcissistic abuse does not just affect what happened between you and another person. It reshapes how you relate to yourself.
The confusion, the self-blame, the difficulty knowing what you feel or what you need — these are not character flaws. They are the fingerprints of a dynamic that was designed, consciously or not, to keep you off-balance and dependent.
Recovery is not about forgetting or forcing yourself to move on. It is about reclaiming the parts of yourself that were suppressed, rebuilding trust in your own perceptions, and learning to relate to yourself and others from a place of safety rather than survival. That process takes time, and it deserves proper support.
Making sense of what happened — and what it left behind
Therapy provides a consistent, non-judgemental space where you can begin to process your experiences at your own pace. It is not about assigning labels to other people. It is about understanding how you were affected, and what you need in order to heal.
Together, we explore the patterns that developed within the relationship or family dynamic, the survival strategies you adopted, and the beliefs about yourself that may have taken root. We look at how these show up in your life now — in relationships, in your sense of identity, in your emotional responses — and we work gently to loosen their grip.
This is not about reliving painful events for the sake of it. It is about creating the clarity, language, and emotional groundedness you need to move forward with greater stability and self-trust. Therapy can also help with the grief that often accompanies this kind of recovery — grief for lost time, for the relationship you believed you were in, or for the childhood you deserved.
Trauma-informed, relational, and grounded
My work draws on psychodynamic understanding and trauma-informed practice. I pay close attention to the relational patterns, attachment wounds, and survival responses that narcissistic abuse leaves behind, and I work with you to process these in a way that feels safe and paced.
I understand the specific dynamics of narcissistic abuse — the confusion, the intermittent reinforcement, the way it can make you question your own reality. You will not need to convince me that what you experienced was real or harmful. That is a given.
Sessions are 50 minutes. I offer both individual weekly or fortnightly sessions and a structured 12-session recovery programme for clients who want a more focused, supported path through this work. The programme includes between-session exercises, regular check-ins, and tailored therapeutic tools. You can read more about the options and pricing on the fees page.
Finding the right level of support
I offer an initial 20-minute consultation so we can talk about what is bringing you to therapy and whether working together feels like the right fit. There is no pressure and no commitment. From there, you can choose ongoing 50-minute sessions at a pace that suits you, or the 12-session structured programme if you want a more guided approach.
Sessions are available face-to-face in Leeds and Horsforth, or online across the UK. Whether you are in the early stages of recognising what happened, in the middle of processing it, or further along and looking to rebuild, there is a way to work together that meets you where you are.
If you are also navigating the wider effects of relational trauma or complex PTSD, you may find my relational trauma therapy page helpful. For full details on session types and pricing, visit the fees page.
Common questions about narcissistic abuse therapy.
You do not need a diagnosis or a label to seek support. If you have experienced a relationship characterised by control, manipulation, gaslighting, emotional withholding, or cycles of idealisation and devaluation, and you are living with the lasting effects of that dynamic, therapy can help. We do not need to diagnose the other person in order to understand and address what happened to you.
Yes. I work with adults recovering from narcissistic abuse in both romantic relationships and family systems, including parental dynamics. The patterns and wounds can differ, but the core therapeutic work of understanding the impact, processing the grief, and rebuilding your sense of self applies in both contexts.
Individual 50-minute sessions offer flexible, ongoing therapeutic support at your own pace. The 12-session programme is a more structured pathway designed specifically for narcissistic abuse recovery, incorporating between-session exercises, check-ins, and tailored therapeutic tools. Both approaches are trauma-informed and can be adapted to suit your needs.
No. You can begin therapy at any stage. Some clients come while still in the relationship, others shortly after leaving, and some come years later when they recognise the lasting impact. Wherever you are in the process, therapy can offer clarity, support, and a safe space to work through what you are experiencing.
Therapy is always paced to suit you. While understanding your experiences is an important part of the work, you will never be pushed to share more than feels safe. We work at a pace that respects your nervous system and builds capacity gradually. The goal is not to relive painful events but to process them in a way that reduces their hold on your present life.
There is no fixed timeline. Recovery from narcissistic abuse is a deeply personal process and depends on many factors, including the nature and duration of the abuse, your support system, and where you are starting from. Some clients find meaningful progress within the 12-session programme. Others benefit from longer-term work. We will check in regularly about what feels helpful and adjust accordingly.
Yes. I offer sessions both face-to-face in Leeds and Horsforth, and online via a secure video platform for clients anywhere in the UK. Online sessions follow the same structure and therapeutic approach as in-person sessions.
You can get in touch through the contact page to arrange a 20-minute initial consultation. This is a calm, no-pressure conversation to explore what is bringing you to therapy and whether working together feels right for you.
You deserve support that understands
Recovery begins with being heard.
If you are ready to explore therapy for narcissistic abuse recovery, or if you simply want to ask a question, I would be glad to hear from you. The first step is a brief, no-pressure consultation.
Book an initial consultation