Jake Freedman

Jake Freedman is a counsellor and psychotherapist registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). He holds an MSc in Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy and a PGDip in the Philosophy of Mental Disorder, and he has seven years' experience providing therapeutic support.

Before qualifying, he spent seven years working in community-based mental health and addiction treatment settings. He also worked for five years with an organisation offering long-term psychotherapy to people with histories of addiction and childhood trauma, a period that developed his detailed understanding of how early adversity can shape adult behaviour and psychic functioning.

Since qualifying, Jake has completed extensive post-qualifying training in developmental trauma and dissociation. He has a particular clinical interest in treating depersonalisation and derealisation and keeps up to date with relevant research on treatment approaches and best practice in this area.

Jake practises from a psychodynamic perspective, which focuses on identifying and understanding recurring themes and both conscious and unconscious patterns that appear in relationships. His work explores how a person relates to themselves, to others, within the workplace and, where relevant, to the objects of addictive processes. Patterns that once supported survival can bring costs in later life, and the therapeutic process pays careful attention to the emotional experiences in which these ways of relating occur. By helping bring these relational patterns into awareness, therapy aims to make them more open to change.