You became who you needed to be. It's no longer sustainable.
Depth-oriented work for professionals navigating the cost of high performance.
High function. Low reserves.
You are capable, reliable, and often the one others depend on. From the outside, things work. What changes is how much it takes to keep it that way.
What once felt like strength, being composed, self-sufficient, and in control, now feels harder to sustain. The same responses repeat, even when you can see them clearly.
The drive to keep functioning is still there. The capacity underneath it is thinning. What brings people here is rarely crisis alone. More often, it is the recognition that insight has not changed the experience itself.
If this feels familiar, you don't have to keep managing it alone.
I work with professionals in finance, law, technology, and the creative industries, often in senior or leadership positions.
Many are navigating significant internal pressure beneath outward success.
Dr Anne Li, CPsychol, DPsych
Chartered Counselling Psychologist (HCPC)
Former Investment Banking Professional
Work offered online, with limited in-person availability in central London, across ongoing therapy, focused consultations, leadership work, and intensives.
→ Explore ways of working
Friction points in high-pressure lives
“I’M DOING WELL, BUT IT NEVER FEELS LIKE ENOUGH.”
You hold yourself to a high standard, and it’s become automatic.
Even when you stop, your mind keeps going. Reviewing conversations. Anticipating problems. Adjusting to what’s needed.
Rest doesn’t fully land. There’s a background tension, and a growing distance from what you actually feel.
“MY RELATIONSHIPS FEEL STRAINED, EVEN WHEN I CARE DEEPLY.”
You want closeness, but something in relationships feels effortful or slightly out of reach.
You find yourself managing, accommodating, or carrying more than you mean to.
The same dynamics repeat, leaving you frustrated, emotionally distant, or unsure why connection still feels difficult.
“I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM OUTSIDE THE ROLES I PERFORM.”
You’ve adapted to expectations in work, family, or culture for so long that it has become difficult to tell what is truly yours.
Functioning takes priority over feeling. Responsibility over preference.
Life may look full from the outside, while internally something feels muted, distant, or missing.
“Dismantling the tyranny of “should”, one gentle, grounded truth at a time.”
How this work is different
It helps where insight, strategy, or self-understanding no longer feel sufficient on their own.
Many of the people I work with already understand the pattern. They know where it came from, recognise it when it appears, and understand the costs it carries.
The question is rarely Why is this happening? It is: If I already understand it, why does it keep happening?
Understanding a pattern and changing a pattern are different processes.
You may recognise perfectionism and still find yourself unable to stop pushing. You may understand that your self-worth has become tied to achievement and still feel compelled to prove yourself. You may see the costs of emotional self-reliance and still struggle to ask for help.
These responses have often been practised for decades, becoming increasingly automatic, particularly under pressure.
The work aims to loosen the grip of these patterns. Change develops through awareness, emotional processing, behavioural experimentation, and new relational experiences. With practice, different ways of thinking, feeling, and responding become increasingly available.
The aim is greater flexibility and freedom, so that what once felt inevitable gradually becomes a choice.
→ Explore how this work is approached
How change becomes possible
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Recognising the patterns
Learning to notice the recurring ways you think, feel, and respond, especially those that have become automatic through repetition.
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Understanding what they protect
Many longstanding patterns once served an important purpose. Understanding what they protect often creates more flexibility than trying to eliminate them.
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Catching them in real time
Learning to recognise familiar responses as they emerge, creating more space to pause, choose, and respond differently.
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Experimenting with alternatives
Practising new ways of responding, whether that means setting boundaries, expressing needs, slowing down, or tolerating uncertainty.
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Building capacity
Many patterns persist because they protect us from emotions such as anxiety, shame, vulnerability, or uncertainty. Part of the work involves developing the capacity to stay present without retreating into familiar coping strategies.
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Allowing change to stabilise
New responses become more available through practice and repetition. Eventually, what once required conscious effort begins to feel more natural in everyday life.
What tends to shift
The internal pressure that rarely switches off begins to ease.
Achievement becomes less central to your sense of worth.
Relationships become less effortful and more authentic.
Difficult emotions are easier to tolerate without the immediate need to solve, avoid, or control them.
What once felt automatic becomes more open to choice.
You gradually feel more present in your own life.
→ A more detailed exploration can be found in How Change Becomes Possible.
Psychological intensives
At times, something reaches a point where weekly sessions are no longer enough. This may be a period of acute pressure, a relationship dynamic that feels difficult to step out of, or a pattern that has not shifted despite ongoing work.
A psychological intensive creates a more continuous space to work at depth over several hours. Rather than stopping just as something begins to open, we are able to stay with it, understand it more fully, and work through it as it unfolds.
This often allows for movement that would otherwise take weeks or months to emerge.
Half-day or full-day sessions.
Ways of working together
The work is offered across a small number of focused formats, depending on what is needed. The most appropriate way of working is usually clarified in an initial consultation.
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Individual therapy
For those seeking ongoing, in-depth psychological work
Weekly therapy creates space to understand recurring patterns, process difficult experiences, and develop new ways of relating to yourself and others. It is particularly suited to people looking for meaningful and lasting change rather than a quick solution.
Sessions are offered online, with limited in-person availability in central London.
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Psychological intensives
For those seeking a more concentrated format
Intensives offer the opportunity to work deeply on a particular issue over a half-day, full-day, or multi-day format. They can be especially valuable when weekly therapy feels too slow, impractical, or insufficient for the complexity of the issue being explored.
→ Learn more about Psychological Intensives
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Focused consultation
For a specific challenge, decision, or period of transition
A focused consultation provides space to think carefully about a particular difficulty without committing to ongoing therapy. Some people find that a small number of sessions is sufficient to gain clarity and decide on next steps.
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Leadership + executive work
For leaders navigating the personal demands of responsibility
This work explores the psychological dimensions of leadership, including decision-making, performance pressure, conflict, visibility, burnout, and relationships at work. The focus is not simply on effectiveness, but on understanding the person behind the role.
→ Learn more about Leadership & Executive Work
About
With more than fourteen years of clinical experience across NHS and private settings, I have worked with people from a wide range of professional, cultural, and personal backgrounds. Today, I work primarily with high-performing professionals facing questions of identity, relationships, burnout, purpose, and change.
Before training as a psychologist, I worked in investment banking and later in the creative industries. This continues to inform how I think about performance, identity, and internal pressure, particularly in environments where competence is highly valued and difficulty is often hidden.
As a British Chinese clinician, I am attentive to questions of identity, belonging, expectation, and adaptation across cultures, environments, and family systems. Having spent much of my life between cultures, including periods living and working in Beijing, Paris, and Buenos Aires, I am particularly attuned to the experience of living internationally, navigating multiple identities, and responding to periods of transition, loss, and reinvention.
I am drawn to this work partly because I know this territory from the inside: the standards, responsibilities, and self-expectations that often accompany achievement, together with the personal costs that can emerge when those strategies become our primary way of relating to ourselves and others.
My approach is relational, depth-oriented, and integrative, drawing from psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural, somatic, existential, and trauma-informed approaches, including EMDR. Rather than applying a single model, I draw on different perspectives according to the needs of the individual, paying close attention to recurring patterns, the therapeutic relationship, and the conditions that allow lasting change to occur.
Relationships and attachment sit at the heart of much of my work. I am particularly interested in the patterns that emerge in close relationships, including how we navigate intimacy, conflict, dependence, autonomy, and connection. This remains a focus of both my clinical work and ongoing professional development, including further training in couples therapy.
I am attentive and curious by nature, and often more direct than people expect. This tends to suit thoughtful, capable people who recognise that understanding a pattern and changing it are not always the same thing.
How we learn to protect ourselves
At the core of this work is the recognition that how we think, feel, and relate is shaped early, within the environments in which we grow up.
When needs for safety, stability, attention, or acceptance are not fully met, we adapt. These adaptations often begin as ways of securing belonging, protection, or control.
They can support achievement, competence, and self-reliance, while also narrowing how we live and relate. What once helped can eventually become limiting.
This work creates space to recognise these patterns more clearly, so different ways of experiencing and responding can emerge.
Further reading: Is it always the parents' fault?
Professional Credentials
Qualifications
Doctorate in Counselling Psychology (DPsych)
Chartered Counselling Psychologist (CPsychol), British Psychological Society
Registered Practitioner Psychologist, Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)
London School of Economics (BSc)
Experience & Additional Training
Over 14 years’ clinical experience across the NHS and private practice
Background in investment banking and the creative industries
EMDR trained
Further training in couples therapy
Selected Insights
Fees
ONGOING INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
Online: £180
In-person (Central London): £200
50 minutes
FOCUSED CONSULTATION
£340
90 minutes
LEADERSHIP WORK
Structured according to the scope and format of the work. Discussed at initial consultation.
PSYCHOLOGICAL INTENSIVES
Arranged on a case-by-case basis. Fees reflect the depth and extended format of the work.
I work primarily with self-funding clients, and with a select number of insurers including Allianz, Bupa International, Cigna, Healix, Vitality, and WPA. Bupa UK referrals are not currently accepted.
Questions?
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The first step is to arrange an initial consultation. This offers space to discuss what has brought you here and to consider whether working together feels like the right fit. We can also think about the most appropriate way of working at this stage.
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The initial consultation is a chance to discuss what has brought you here and to get a sense of how I work. It is not an assessment in a formal sense, but a space to begin thinking together and to consider whether this feels like a useful way of working.
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I work with thoughtful, high-functioning professionals who experience significant internal pressure despite appearing capable and successful from the outside.
Common areas of work include anxiety, burnout, perfectionism, and a persistent sense of pressure or self-doubt. This may be accompanied by overthinking, difficulty switching off, or a sense that achievement does not bring the expected relief.
Some people seek support around relationships, including patterns of over-responsibility, difficulty setting boundaries, or emotional distance. Others come with questions of identity, direction, or meaning, particularly at points of transition.
The work often focuses less on isolated symptoms and more on the patterns that sit beneath them.
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Many capable and thoughtful people are used to relying on their own insight and resilience.
This work offers a different kind of space: one where you can think openly with someone trained to notice patterns, emotional dynamics, and relational themes that are often difficult to see from the inside.
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Therapy focuses more explicitly on emotional experience, relational patterns, and the impact of past and present experiences on how you think, feel, and relate. It often involves working at depth over time. Coaching is typically more focused on current challenges, decision-making, and forward movement.
In practice, the distinction is not always clear-cut. Many of the challenges people face are shaped by underlying patterns that influence both performance and relationships.
My coaching work is informed by clinical training, allowing us to work with both outcomes and underlying dynamics where relevant. If you are unsure which is the better fit, we can think about this together.
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Ongoing work is typically weekly, with 50-minute sessions.
In some cases, we may work in a more focused way through extended consultations, or intensives, depending on what is most appropriate.
The length of the work varies. Some people come for a defined period around a specific issue, while others choose to continue for longer to explore patterns in greater depth.
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Yes. Sessions are held online via secure video, allowing you to attend from home or while travelling.
Online work can be just as effective as in-person work for many people, and often offers greater flexibility.
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I am registered with selected insurance providers, including Allianz, Aviva, Bupa Global, Cigna, Healix, Vitality, and WPA.
If you intend to use insurance, please check the details of your policy in advance and mention this when making your enquiry.
If this feels familiar
When managing is no longer enough
An initial consultation offers space to think about what is happening, whether this work feels appropriate, and what kind of support may be most useful.
A brief 15-minute call to consider fit and next steps.