Gemma Pattison

Gemma Pattison is a counsellor registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) who has worked in counselling roles for over eight years. She meets people where they are and encourages them to take small steps towards feeling better. Gemma aims to create a calm space where clients can begin to talk through their worries and make sense of difficult emotions.

Her day-to-day work includes helping people with stress, anxiety and low mood. She also supports those dealing with relationship strain, grief, trauma and various forms of abuse. Gemma offers support around anger, sleep and eating concerns, addictions, parenting strains and work-related stress.

Gemma usually works in a person-centred way. That means she follows the client’s pace and priorities while offering practical tools when helpful. She also draws on cognitive behavioural ideas and mindfulness practices to help people notice patterns and try small changes.

Over eight years she has worked with many different life challenges, including neurodiversity, attachment issues, adoption and foster care, and long-term health and caregiving stresses. She brings that experience to sessions while treating each person’s situation as unique.

Gemma offers sessions in English and accepts international clients. Therapy begins by choosing Start Therapy, completing a short matching questionnaire and arranging sessions to suit the client. She responds to messages as part of her ongoing support between meetings.

How Gemma’s approaches translate to online work

Gemma uses person-centred ways of working alongside cognitive behavioural ideas and mindfulness practice. Person-centred counselling focuses on listening and supporting the client to lead the conversation, which suits worries that need time to be named and understood. Cognitive behavioural approaches look at patterns of thought and behaviour and invite practical experiments to test small changes that can reduce anxiety or low mood. Mindfulness work teaches simple attention and breathing skills to lower stress and improve sleep.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. Gemma will talk through the options with the client and decide what to try first based on their goals and daily life. She adapts methods over time if something is not helpful, so therapy stays collaborative and goal-focused.

The profile notes that she uses video, telephone and chat and that she regularly responds to messages, so these are the formats to confirm when booking. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions around work, caring responsibilities and travel, and it can allow shorter check-ins by message or phone when a full session is not needed. Before scheduling, check the current session options to see what suits your routine.