This life is incredible and beautiful,
as much as it is cruel, heartbreaking,
confusing, and overwhelming.
You may feel trapped in unwanted patterns, unraveled by loss and change, or disconnected from a sense of self and meaning.
The good news is that the challenges you are facing are a direct path to a new level of relationship with yourself, others, and life.
You do not have to walk this path alone.
Therapy is a space where you can freely express and explore yourself while being held in a supportive and attuned presence. Together we will open up and move through the feelings, sensations, and beliefs that underly your struggles, allowing something new to emerge.
It is important to find a therapist you resonate with. On this website, you can learn more about who I am as a person and a therapist, and about how I work. If you would like to work together, please feel free to contact me.
About Me
I am a therapist in private practice, helping individuals move through psychological suffering into a deeper relationship with themselves, others, and existence.
My own honest engagement with trauma, loss, chronic illness, as well as longing, stuckness, chaos, and disconnection has given me insight into the dark and the light, allowing me to develop a capacity to be with others in challenging states. My long-term engagement in personal therapy, as well as mind-body, artistic, relational, and spiritual practices, has been truly saving and transformative, instilling in me a deep reverence and trust in the power of the body and the soul. Change occurs on the level beyond conceptual understanding, and the mystery of life can never be reduced to abstractions, yet ideas can be the riverbed in which life energy flows. My academic engagement with psychotherapy, analytical psychology, and research has been a rewarding and organising experience, providing a way out of dichotomies into a dialectical, integral, and symbolic way of thinking.
Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness & Symbolic Lens
My long-standing interest in psychedelics has led me to complete foundational trainings in ethical psychedelic care from The Synthesis Institute and in supporting individuals navigating challenging psychedelic experiences from Safe Shore.
I hold a certificate in 'Psychedelics and Depth Psychology Series: Treatment and Transformation in an Animated Cosmos’ from Pacifica Graduate Institute.
I have conducted qualitative research into visionary relational encounters in psychedelic experiences and their discussions in therapy. My findings show that with an attuned, psychedelic-informed practitioner, therapy becomes a space of a relational and dynamic interweaving of the psychedelic experience and therapeutic process, leading to psychological re-organisation and sustained changes in daily life.
Bringing together the Psychic and the Physical
In addition to my therapeutic role, I create spaces where the psychic and the physical can meet in cohesion and channel the life force into a different state of being. Weaving together image, sensation, affect, and meaning, I hold participatory experiences involving somatic-imagery work, tea ceremony, meditation, ritual, authentic movement, and relational practices.
Qualifications and Experience
I hold a BSc in Counselling degree from the University of East London and engage in continuous professional development, personal therapy, and regular supervision. I have worked with clients from diverse backgrounds in the NHS and private settings, helping people with a range of psychological difficulties, including: childhood trauma, CPTSD, anxiety, addictions, loss and bereavement, depression, low self-esteem, relationship problems, work related stress, sexuality and sexual issues.
I am a registered member of BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) and abide by their code of ethics.
My Approach
To heal means to 'make whole',
and when we feel whole we are in touch with the whole world.
~ Michael Meade
Disconnection from self, others, and life itself manifests in a myriad painful ways. A sense of emptiness and stuckness. A perpetual underlying fear. Criticism and shame looming over the shoulder. Feeling fragmented and conflicted. Strained relationship with sources of pleasure. Unsatisfying or hurtful relationships. Deep longings for love, seenness, expansion, cohesion, and meaning that feel more like burdens. A sense of an overwhelming disparateness of the world.
These symptoms are not errors. They are calling for your attention. Calling you home.
When we truly pay attention, things start to shift. Together, we will listen deeply to what is true for you. We will follow the thread of your symptoms and difficulties back to their origins, the existential sense, — and further to what they lead towards. Because the question is not only 'why?', but 'what for?'. The future, as much as the present and the past. Soul-making, rather than wound-treatment.
The therapeutic container is what allows us to safely go deep into the muck and the light within. To explore, illuminate, and let things shift and transform. It is where I hold you and the process with deep attunement, fierce compassion, honesty, and humour.
While rooted in relational psychodynamics, the attachment-based approach, and depth psychological perspectives, I draw from different modalities to meet your needs at a particular point in time. We will focus on exploring and shifting the patterns and perceptions through:
-
exploring past experiences, particularly early attachments and significant events
-
staying with the arising bodily sensations, mental imagery, metaphors, and dreams
-
using reparative techniques, such as Somatic Experiencing, image rescripting, IFS, nervous system regulation, and compassion
-
bringing awareness to how we relate to each other and how this may represent relational patterns in your life.
-
using the therapeutic space as an opportunity to test new ways of relating and expressing yourself
I can help with
-
Developmental / Attachment Trauma
-
Abandonment & Engulfment Wounds
-
Relational Difficulties
-
Sex & Intimacy
-
Depression
-
Anxiety & Fear
-
Stress
-
Binge Eating
-
High Sensitivity & Intensity (HSP)
-
Loss & Grief
-
Death & Dying
-
Life Transitions
-
Integrating Peak Experiences (psychedelic-induced or otherwise)
-
Spirituality
-
Relationship with Femininity & Masculinity as Psychic Poles
-
Existential Anxiety & Crisis
-
Self-Actualisation
I welcome diverse forms of relating and sexuality, including LGBTQ+, ethical non-monogamy, and kink.
Practical Information
I offer weekly, 50-minute sessions. They take place online or face-to-face in a calm and comfortable therapy room in London Bridge.
The fee is £70 per session.
I charge £50 for our initial consultation.
I work within an open-ended or short-term framework (a minimum of 12 sessions).
Please email me at leila.feltsensetherapy@gmail.com to inquire about current availability and let me know briefly what brings you to therapy. We will arrange an initial consultation, following which we can proceed to regular sessions if you wish to do so.
You can also book an initial consultation online via Calendly.
