I know what it feels like to move through the world feeling like you don't quite fit — not because something is wrong with you, but because the world wasn't designed with your kind of mind in it. I get it, because I've lived it.
I'm Leanne, an integrative creative psychotherapist based in Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, working with clients online across the UK. I'm also AuDHD — something I discovered about myself while walking alongside my son through his own diagnostic pathway. That journey cracked everything open. Suddenly, so much of my own life made sense. And it completely transformed how I work with the people who come to me.
My lived experience goes beyond my own late identification. I understand school anxiety and school trauma from the inside out. I know the weight of watching your child struggle in a system that wasn't built for them — because I've sat with that weight myself. I understand demand avoidance — not as a behaviour to manage, but as a nervous system trying its best to stay safe. These aren't things I've read about. They're things I've lived.
I'm also an Elective Home Educator. I want to be honest about what that means: I came to home education through a system that wasn't working for our family. It's a path I was pushed towards before I was pulled towards it — the school environment wasn't safe, the support wasn't there, and we were out of options the system was willing to offer. But what I found on the other side of that decision was something I wish I'd known about far sooner. EHE isn't a last resort. It's a genuine, valid, often extraordinary choice — and one I now advocate for wholeheartedly. That experience lives in how I work with every family navigating a system that doesn't quite fit them. If you're on that path, or considering it, you'll find no judgement here — only someone who genuinely gets it.
My training and background
I hold an MSc in Creative Psychotherapy, a PGCert in Advanced Counselling Skills in a Humanistic Approach, and a Level 5 in Child Development. I'm a Workplace Trainer on the Anna Freud & NHS England National Autistic Trainer Programme, and I'm an Accredited Member of the NCPS — the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society.
But honestly, my most important qualification is lived experience — and that's what shapes everything about how I work. The letters matter. The rigour matters. But it's the understanding that comes from being human, not just being trained, that makes therapy feel different here.
How I work
The short version: I follow your lead, I don't do scripts, and I'm interested in all of you — not just the part that feels like a problem. My approach is integrative and creative, which means we might talk, draw, move, use music or metaphor or storytelling — whatever opens things up most naturally for you. Nothing is required. Everything is possible. If you want to understand what a session actually looks like, the Therapy page goes into the full detail.
Beyond the therapy room
Alongside my clinical work, I deliver CPD training for therapists and counsellors through The Neuroaffirming Therapy Room, and I work with schools, organisations and local authorities as an Autistic Workplace Trainer and commissioned wellbeing provider. I deliver emotional wellbeing sessions directly in school settings, and parent workshops demystifying autism and ADHD — giving families honest, accessible information that the system often doesn't make easy to find. That work is rooted in the same belief that runs through everything I do: that people thrive when they feel genuinely met — and that creating the conditions for that is possible in any setting, not just a therapy room.
All of this — the clinical training, the lived experience, the parenting, the advocacy, the EHE journey — is what I bring into the room with me. Not as a performance of relatability, but because it genuinely shapes how I see people and what I believe they deserve.
If you're a therapist or counsellor looking for CPD, or a school, organisation or local authority looking for training and commissioned provision, there's a whole strand of my work dedicated to that. Take a look at Work With Me and CPD Training to find out more.