The myth of the threshold

Most people carry an unspoken rule: therapy is for when things fall apart. It is a strange rule, and we apply it to nothing else we value. Athletes do not wait for injury to train. High performers do not wait for bankruptcy to see an accountant. Yet the mind, the asset every other part of life runs on, is expected to maintain itself.

The clients I see are, for the most part, doing well. What brings them is quieter: criticism that lands harder than it should, success that does not feel the way it was supposed to, patterns in relationships or work that repeat despite every insight. These are not disorders. They are unfinished business, and they respond well to focused work.

What EMDR actually does

My primary modality is EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. It is recommended by NICE, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, for post-traumatic stress, and its evidence base there is strong. What is less widely understood is what that mechanism means for people who are not acutely unwell.

Contemporary memory research describes how, when memories are recalled under the right conditions, they become temporarily open to change before being stored again. EMDR appears to make use of exactly this window. In practice, that means an experience that still stings, an early lesson about worth or visibility, a moment that quietly set the template for how criticism feels, can be processed so it becomes something you remember rather than something you relive. You do not need a diagnosis to benefit from that. You need an experience that is still running the show.

Questions worth sitting with

When criticism lands, how old do you feel? Whose voice does your harshest self-talk resemble? What would you attempt if the fear of being seen to fail were half its current size? If any of these questions produce a sharper answer than you expected, that is usually the place therapy would start.

Why timing matters

Depth work is easiest when life is stable. There is capacity to reflect, energy to practise change, and no crisis demanding attention. The common regret I hear is not “I started too early”. It is “I wish I had done this years ago”. If you are considering it, that is usually the sign.

If this speaks to where you are, you can read about how I work on the Therapy page.