Yana Valcheva

Yana Valcheva is a fully qualified counsellor based in the United Kingdom who combines creative expression with body-informed practices to support clients in navigating difficult experiences.

She has five years of experience in providing therapy services and offers counselling to adults and young people. Sessions with Yana are primarily client-led and often include creative techniques alongside attention to the wisdom of the body - drawing on practices such as dance, yoga, active meditation, bioenergetics and massage.

Yana works with a wide range of concerns, including relationship difficulties, trauma and abuse, grief and bereavement, parenting challenges, depression, addictions, intimacy-related issues, eating difficulties, anger, self-esteem, coping with life changes, and work with LGBT and gay clients. She also offers women-focused support and fertility-related work.

She has experience supporting young clients with anxiety, pregnancy and child loss, infertility, depression, bereavement, self-harm and eating disorders. Her initial training is in fine art and theatre, and she has been on a personal journey of self-discovery for many years. Since 2001 she has worked as a holistic therapist and meditation teacher in Bulgaria, India, France and the UK.

Yana holds a Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling and an MA in Fine Arts. Her other qualifications include certification as a holistic fertility expert, abdominal sacral massage practitioner, ITEC diploma in holistic massage, Thai yoga massage practitioner (Level 4), doula and birth preparation training, advanced bioenergetics trauma bodywork training, yoga and meditation teacher training, and mastery in Usui and Karuna Reiki healing systems.

Inspired by her own experience of pregnancy and motherhood, Yana has developed a particular interest in the womb and lower belly. She supports women through the fertility journey, during pregnancy as a doula, and postnatally. She offers women circles and teaches abdominal massage and self-massage as ways to strengthen connection to the body and feminine power. Talking and creative expression are also used to help process traumatic experiences linked to the womb - for example abuse, pregnancy loss, fibroids, child loss, irregular periods, infertility, endometriosis and other conditions associated with pelvic congestion.

Her approach values trusting the felt sense of the body, and she aims to help clients access their own resources, discover new ways to overcome difficulties and build confidence in themselves.