David O'Donohue
Clinical Psychologist - face-to-faceDavid is a clinical psychologist who helps adults explore the parts of themselves they may have long avoided, resisted, or struggled to make sense of.
David doesn't follow a rigid textbook approach - he works in a curious, exploratory way that's tailored to each person.
He works with people who are carrying emotions they find hard to hold. The aim isn't to give you strategies to manage them away, but to help you feel and process those emotions while also understanding the fear or resistance around them.
David's approach draws on psychodynamic therapy and Internal Family Systems, though the focus is on creating a safe and authentic space where you can be fully heard and seen, including all the contradictory parts of yourself. Instead of working from a diagnosis, which doesn't always capture the complexity of what you're experiencing, he's interested in understanding your individual internal conflicts and how they connect to your symptoms. Often, symptoms come from managing emotions we learned to fear early in life, so therapy involves gently exploring what feelings come up and how you might be keeping them at bay.
His style is gentle and measured, though he can be direct when appropriate. The therapeutic relationship itself can become part of the work. Clients may find themselves expressing things they couldn't say before, noticing patterns in how they relate to others, and having all of it received without judgement. There's no homework unless you specifically want it. Sessions are unstructured and led by what's actually happening for you in the moment. If you're looking for someone who'll be genuinely curious about your inner world and help you understand yourself in ways you may not have before, David might be a good fit.
Outside of the therapy room, David enjoys spending time with his children and listening to the sound of rain and thunder in a storm. David's friends describe him as a "knowledge magpie", because he likes to collect knowledge on lots of different topics, like a magpie collecting shiny treasures.
Modalities
Psychodynamic psychotherapy is an approach to therapy which seeks to understand the conscious and unconscious aspects of a person. It involves exploring what the individual would like to focus on, in an unstructured way, which allows any patterns in how they relate to others or themselves to emerge and be understood.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an approach to therapy which focuses on understanding symptoms and underlying causes by exploring and understanding parts of ourselves carrying emotional pain, and parts of ourselves which try to protect us from that pain. It involves stepping back from our protective parts to embrace and nurture the parts of ourselves holding the pain, with the aim of reducing internal conflict and increasing self acceptance and self compassion.
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