Penny Mackay

My interest in the mind-body connection grew from my own experiences with anxiety, as well as seeing close family members struggle with and recover from depression and chronic fatigue. Together, these experiences sparked a desire to understand why the mind and body can continue to produce very real and distressing symptoms — and, importantly, what can help people begin to feel differently.

At the heart of my approach is compassion and understanding. I know that when anxiety or physical symptoms feel frightening, it's completely natural to want to analyse them, avoid them or do everything possible to make them go away. Rather than seeing these responses as something you are doing wrong, I help you to gently explore why they happen and what might be keeping those patterns going.

My style is warm, supportive and down-to-earth.

There is no expectation to think positively, push difficult feelings away or force yourself to feel differently.

Instead, I will help you to begin to understand your mind and body's responses with more curiosity and less fear, gradually learning to feel safer with thoughts, feelings and sensations that may previously have felt overwhelming.

For me this work isn't simply about giving you the techniques to manage anxiety. It's about helping you to make sense of what you have been going through, begin to trust yourself and your body again, and gradually reach a point where anxiety and symptoms take up less space in your life.

Above all, I want the people I work with to feel genuinely heard and understood, and to leave with a sense of hope that the way they feel now does not have to be the way they feel forever.