About Vanessa
Vanessa Richards is a counsellor who helps people manage anxiety, stress and low mood. She also supports people coping with relationship problems, trauma and abuse, grief, addictions and major life changes. Her approach is calm and down-to-earth, focused on practical steps and honest conversation.
Vanessa uses a relational, person-centred style. She aims to build a steady working relationship so clients feel heard and able to talk through difficult memories and current worries.
Background and approach
Sessions are collaborative and paced to the person’s needs. Her background includes five years of professional practice and a Master’s in integrative counselling and psychotherapy. Vanessa has worked in healthcare settings and has direct experience supporting people affected by cancer and by experiences of abuse.
That experience informs her sensitivity to change, loss and medical stressors. In therapy she combines client-centred listening with tools from cognitive behavioural therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy. That mixture supports both short-term coping and longer-term change.
She also draws on emotionally focused ideas and motivational interviewing when those fit someone’s goals. Sessions include straightforward skill coaching, guided reflection and practical exercises to try between meetings. Vanessa encourages small, achievable steps and checks progress regularly.
Her aim is to help people build clearer thinking, better emotional regulation and stronger day-to-day routines.
Online therapy approaches and how they help
Vanessa blends client-centred work with cognitive behavioural therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy. Client-Centred Therapy focuses on listening and building a trusting relationship so people can talk openly and feel understood. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy offers practical techniques to challenge unhelpful thoughts and build new coping habits for anxiety, low mood and stress. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy teaches emotional regulation and distress-tolerance skills that help when feelings feel overwhelming.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Vanessa will talk with clients about what feels most useful and adapt methods to fit their goals and preferences. That collaborative planning helps pick exercises and session rhythms that make sense for each person.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat or text-based messaging. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and shared exercises, phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or for a quick check-in, live chat suits shorter focused exchanges and messaging lets people keep a running dialogue and try brief exercises between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy around work, caregiving or medical appointments and to keep momentum between meetings.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- Languages
- English
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