Tam Johnston

People often describe me as warm, compassionate, straight-talking and practical. I work at your pace, and I've learned that change can be both gentle and efficient - it doesn't need to be slow, take years, or involve endless exploration to be effective. My role is collaborative - I'm here to facilitate and guide, working with you, not 'on' you. Analysis is left at the door, and I don't pathologize or label what you're experiencing unless it's genuinely helpful or useful - we work with what's happening and focus on creating change. My approach is trauma-informed and rooted in the mind-body connection, focused on change that's practical, deep, and lasting. Working with me is purposeful and focused. Clients often say it feels like we're "just having a chat", but I'm piecing together the patterns underneath, the 'structure' of how you experience things, with careful questioning, guidance and conversational change work that gets to the root of things and creates the biggest shifts. At other points, we'll use specific structured techniques when they're the right tool - particular NLP processes, Havening, timeline work - designed to create targeted shifts on specific issues. Some things we're working on respond particularly well to being guided through a clear process, and some people value that structure too. If helpful, you'll also get clear, science and evidence-based explanations along the way. Understanding what's happening helps you make sense of it and gives you practical strategies and a clearer handle on what to do next and why it works. You'll leave with tools you can use beyond our sessions. We'll cover the 'why' when it's relevant to what we're working on, but always to create change rather than just understanding. My approach works differently when it comes to pace and format Sessions are longer and less frequent than traditional therapy, which means far fewer sessions overall. This gives us the time to go deep and create substantial shifts in each one. It can be intensive work, but it also means you're not spending months in weekly appointments - you get meaningful change without the extended time commitment.

I've always been drawn to helping people - I was the kid who wanted to be a nurse from the moment I could get my hands on a toy stethoscope. What's shifted over the years is moving from fixing broken bones to working with the emotional side of things, and understanding the mind-body connection in a way medical training never really touched on. Before I came to this work in 2011, I spent nearly two decades in frontline healthcare - emergency medicine, leadership roles, most of it in high-pressure settings. It's an environment that trains you to stay calm, read the room quickly, and focus on what matters when things get messy, emotional, or urgent. Emergency care raises your threshold. 'Too much' becomes the norm. It taught me to be comfortable with the hard stuff, the intense emotions, the chaos, and I've learned that what feels too much or too shocking to share never is. Human reactions make sense, even when they don't feel like they do in the moment. That background shaped how I work - steady under pressure, respectful of what people have lived through, and focused on what genuinely helps. It gave me a grounded sense of what we're all capable of, even when we don't think we are. Working as a Nurse Practitioner taught me to think diagnostically, to work backwards and get to the root of what's really going on, gently and safely, so you can get back to your life. A longing for travel and adventure pulled me away from the NHS for a time, and I found myself working as a nurse on cruise ships. Living and working in that small onboard community taught me something important about how much we need each other, how much we affect one another, and how quickly support, humour, and shared perspective can shift things. It reinforced what I've seen again and again - we don't do well in isolation, especially when things get hard. We all need that village. Leadership came later via becoming Emergency Services ‘Matron’ in a busy London Hospital, and with and the public services pressures, came my own burnout. I know what it's like when capable people push until they hit a wall. How disorientating it is. How it can shake you to the core and make you question everything you thought you knew about yourself. Sometimes the recovery requires huge life changes, and the journey back takes longer than you'd ever expect. This experience taught me more than any training ever could about how stress and unspoken pressure build up over time, often invisibly, and how much gets tangled up in our sense of who we are and what we're supposed to be doing. It's part of why I'm passionate about helping people see that what they're going through makes sense, and why I care so much about making the complex simple, helping people find a way forward that doesn't require years of circling the same patterns, and why insight alone isn't always enough to create change. Since 2011, I've been doing this work one-to-one. I've trained with the best in their fields because I want to bring you an approach that's blended, integrated, and tailored to you. These days my Chief Happiness Officer is Darcie, my dog, who makes me laugh every day and reminds me that presence, connection, and not taking life too seriously matter just as much as any of the serious stuff.