Summar Ali

Summar Ali is a counsellor who helps people facing stress, anger and a wide range of emotional challenges. She greets each person with calm and straightforward care, and aims to make talking about difficult things feel manageable. Her approach is practical and warm, focused on what matters to the individual.

She draws on 11 years of experience across health and charity settings, including work in child and adolescent mental health services, school counselling, drug and alcohol support, bereavement services and sexual trauma work. This range of roles informs her ability to spot what might be unhelpful in a person's day-to-day life and to suggest different ways of coping.

Summar holds a BA in Counselling and Psychotherapy and a Postgraduate Certificate in Evidence Based Interventions for Children and Young People. She also has a Postgraduate Certificate in Supervisory Skills and a Higher Education Certificate in Academic Practice with fellowship status.

Therapy sessions tend to focus on practical steps and on building awareness of patterns that keep problems alive. She uses methods drawn from cognitive behavioural work, acceptance and commitment ideas, attachment-based thinking and dialectical behaviour approaches to help people handle strong emotions and difficult situations.

Outside of online practice she has lectured at the University of Southampton and the Anna Freud Centre, and she also works as an animal-assisted therapist. Her background includes continuing professional development in the neurobiology of trauma.

How therapeutic approaches shape online work

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) encourages people to notice stressful thoughts without fighting them and to choose actions that match their values; it is often used for anxiety, depression and stress-related problems. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts, feelings and actions link together and supports practical changes to reduce distress and improve daily routines.

Finding the right approach is a joint process. The therapist will talk with the person about goals, what has helped or not helped before, and which methods feel most agreeable. Together they decide which ideas to try and adapt work as they learn what helps in day-to-day life.

Confirm the exact online session options before booking because the biography does not list formats. Online work can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy week, reduce travel time, allow shorter check-ins when needed and let people join from quieter surroundings. It also makes international work possible for those living outside the UK. Registered or accredited professionals often combine practical exercises, in-session talking and homework tasks to help people practise new skills between meetings.