Counsellor
Bernadette Kavanagh
BACP 00889703 | NCPS NCS17-05201
She/her
You aren't broken. There's a reason you feel the way you do — and I can help you understand it.
WHO I help
For people stuck in cycles they don't fully understand — and ready to start making sense of them.
Bernadette works with individuals and couples who feel stuck — in anxiety, low self-worth, relationship difficulties, or self-sabotaging patterns they can see but can't seem to shift.
Many appear strong and capable on the outside. They're performing: holding everything together, caring for others, showing up. But inside, they're exhausted, overwhelmed, and often carrying something they've never had the space to properly put down.
By the time people reach out for therapy, they're usually tired of surviving silently. They want more than coping. They want to actually understand what's happening, and why.
Beneath almost every presentation I see is trauma — often unrecognised, but always where we get emotionally stuck.
how i work
Felt Trauma therapy that goes where talking alone can't always reach.
Bernadette works integratively, drawing on CBT, Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, and — at the heart of her approach — Felt Trauma. This is a body-based, nervous-system-aware way of working that allows people to process what they're carrying at a deeper level than cognitive understanding alone.
Clients describe feeling not just listened to, but genuinely heard, seen, and understood. The environment feels safe enough to explore what's really going on — not just the presenting problem, but what's underneath it.
The work evolves at your pace. Over time, anxiety can ease. Relationships can improve. Boundaries become clearer. And a quieter, more compassionate relationship with yourself can begin to grow.
When we feel truly seen, heard, and understood, change becomes possible. That's the heart of it.
It's nice to meet you!
Lifts weights. Cold plunges. Apparently very funny.
Bernadette came to this work through her own lived experience of domestic abuse. She doesn't share this to perform vulnerability — she shares it because it is the most honest answer to why she does what she does.
Outside of the therapy room she lifts weights and cold plunges. Both, she says, are essential.
Her friends would tell you she's funny. Properly funny. Her clients are usually surprised by this, which she considers a professional success. She is also, completely and without shame, unable to hold a note — though that has never stopped her singing.
Specialisms
Anxiety
Depression
Trauma & PTSD
Grief & loss
Eating disorders
Relationships
Domestic abuse
Addiction
Sleep
Anger
Work & career
Parenting
Session information
£60 individual | £80 couples
In-person and online
bernadettekavanaghcounselling.org
kavanagh1@icloud.com
