Elizabeth Shaw

Elizabeth Shaw is a BACP counsellor practising in the United Kingdom with 10 years of professional experience. She helps people who are struggling with LGBT concerns, relationship difficulties, trauma and abuse, low self-esteem, and depression. She also works with issues around attachment, guilt and shame, sexuality, multicultural concerns, women’s issues and questions about life purpose.

Elizabeth uses a conversational, client-centred way of working. Sessions focus on what matters to the person in front of her. She listens for patterns from a psychodynamic perspective and helps clients notice how past experiences shape current feelings and choices.

Practical steps are central to her approach. Conversations can include reflecting on relationships, looking at recurring beliefs, and trying small changes to see what feels different. She describes therapy as a collaborative process where the client’s priorities guide the work.

Elizabeth adapts how she works depending on what a person brings to a session. She aims to be direct and clear about what she and the client will try together. That may mean slowing down to understand painful memories or focusing on present-day decisions about work, identity and relationships.

People who come feeling stuck about what comes next often use sessions to test options and to talk through priorities. The emphasis is on making space to think aloud, spot unhelpful patterns, and practice different ways of responding in everyday life.

How Elizabeth uses client-centred and psychodynamic work online

Elizabeth draws on client-centred therapy, which focuses on listening closely to what the person needs and shaping conversations around those priorities. This approach is useful for sorting out values, identity questions and relationship choices because it starts from what matters to the client.

She also uses psychodynamic ideas to help people notice patterns that repeat across relationships and life decisions. That perspective looks at how past experiences can influence feelings and behaviour today, which can be useful when issues like attachment, guilt or trauma are present.

Choosing an approach is part of the work. Elizabeth treats this as a collaborative process and will help clients test which way of working feels most useful. Together they check progress and change direction if needed, based on the client’s goals and preferences.

Session formats are not specified in the biography, so confirm current options before booking. Online sessions can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy week, reduce travel time and allow shorter check-ins when clients need them. They also allow conversations to continue without relocating your routine, while the therapist and client work out practical steps and experiments to try between meetings.