Asma Mani
Integrative Psychotherapist
MA, MA (Cantab.), UKCP, MBACP
Asma (the first syllable is pronounced like the word “us”) is an integrative psychotherapist who works with children of all ages, adolescents and young adults to explore and help with problems that can arise from emotional difficulties. She also offers sessions to parents who want a space to reflect on how to support their children’s wellbeing.
Asma works in partnership with each person to explore their experiences and internal world together, including thinking about what might be happening under the surface, more unconsciously. Building a warm, authentic relationship is crucial to her work: developing a joint understanding of an individual’s emotional landscape in a safe, compassionate environment where you feel truly “seen” can enable things that are causing difficulties to shift and change.
Therapy can be a non-judgemental, private space for someone to explore areas of their life which are causing distress. All sorts of situations can bring someone of any age to therapy, but areas we might focus on include confidence, self-esteem, anxiety, low mood, managing anger, relationships, emotional difficulties associated with neurodiversity, resilience, parental separation, emotional regulation, the impact of special educational needs, and friendship issues. Therapy can also be a great testing ground to explore new ways of relating to others and gain some perspective.
As an integrative psychotherapist, Asma doesn’t have a single set way of working, but uses a range of tools in her ‘toolbox’ (including psychoanalytic technique, arts therapy, Attachment Theory, neurobiology, object relations and CBT) and then sees what might best suit the individual in that moment. Sometimes with younger children the work is done through metaphor and play. Teenagers and young adults might do a mixture of talking, using art materials and bodywork. For people of all ages the arts can be an incredibly effective way of reaching knowledge that might be impossible to articulate or too overwhelming to face directly, and working in this way can incorporate insights from less verbal, more visual or instinctive parts of the mind and body. Where that isn’t a good fit, Asma works through talking therapy and considers the impact of life experiences in a more traditional psychotherapeutic way, reflecting on where learned defence mechanisms may have ceased to be helpful.
Asma, who also works for the Anna Freud Centre, began her career as a teacher in 2009. She then spent 8 years in central government as a policy civil servant, including working in HM Treasury and the Department for Health and Social Care on social welfare and mental health policies. She loves reading, music and yoga, and is a poor but enthusiastic surfer.