For busy minds, sensitive nervous systems and times when life feels difficult to navigate.
Therapy & Hypnotherapy
You don't need to be in crisis to come to therapy.
Sometimes you're functioning perfectly well on the outside while your mind is working overtime underneath. Perhaps you're anxious, overwhelmed or exhausted. Perhaps life has changed and you haven't quite caught up with it yet. Or perhaps you simply recognise that the same thoughts, fears or patterns keep appearing and you're ready to meet them differently.
I've worked therapeutically with people for more than 17 years and my approach brings together Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), clinical hypnotherapy, mindfulness and cognitive behavioural approaches. I offer one-to-one therapy and clinical hypnotherapy in Leicestershire and online, supporting people with anxiety, overthinking, overwhelm, confidence, life transitions and patterns that feel difficult to change.
My work is practical, compassionate and collaborative. We might talk. We might explore what your mind is doing and why. We might practise ways of responding differently to difficult thoughts and feelings. We can use hypnosis to quiet some of the constant commentary of the thinking mind and work in a more focused, experiential way.
The aim isn't to turn you into somebody different.
It's to help you become less pushed around by fear, old patterns and an overactive mind - and more able to live in a way that feels grounded, meaningful and genuinely yours.
17+ years therapeutic experience · MA Mindfulness · ACT · Clinical Hypnotherapy · Senior GHR Practitioner
A different way of working with the mind
We can spend an enormous amount of energy trying to get rid of thoughts and feelings we don’t want.
Trying not to worry.
Trying to feel more confident.
Trying to stop thinking about something.
Trying to control anxiety.
Trying to make ourselves feel differently.
And often the harder we try, the more entangled we become.
Much of my therapeutic work is influenced by Acceptance & Commitment Therapy - ACT.
ACT doesn’t ask us to eliminate every difficult thought or uncomfortable feeling. Instead, we learn how to recognise what the mind is doing, relate differently to our internal experience and become less governed by fear, avoidance or old stories about ourselves.
We develop the ability to become more:
Aware
To notice what is happening in the mind, body and world around us — and recognise when we’ve become pulled into worry, memory, prediction or habitual thinking.
Open
To make room for thoughts, feelings and sensations without automatically needing to fight them, believe them or make them disappear.
Engaged
To become clearer about what genuinely matters to us and begin making choices from our values rather than from fear.
And where does hypnotherapy fit?
Sometimes talking and thinking are enormously helpful.
And sometimes we already understand the problem.
We know why we react the way we do.
We know the fear isn’t entirely rational.
We know what we should be telling ourselves.
And yet something deeper doesn’t seem to have got the message.
This is where I find hypnosis particularly valuable.
Hypnosis is a naturally focused state of attention — rather like becoming completely absorbed in music, meditation, a book or a daydream.
You remain aware and in control throughout.
Rather than being something I “do” to you, hypnosis gives us another way of working together — using focused attention, imagination, suggestion and embodied experience rather than relying entirely on conversation.
It can be particularly useful for confidence, anxiety, fears and phobias, performance, preparation for important events and changing deeply established responses or patterns.
For some clients hypnosis becomes an important part of our work.
For others, ACT, mindfulness and therapeutic conversation are more useful.
We use what helps.
Therapy doesn’t have to mean years of talking
My aim has always been to help people develop enough understanding, confidence and practical tools that, over time, they need me less - not more.
Our work is collaborative and practical. We might talk and explore what has been happening.
We might look at the patterns your mind has learned and why they once made sense.
We might practise ways of relating differently to difficult thoughts and feelings.
There may be mindfulness or grounding practices.
There may be experiments to try between sessions.
And, where appropriate, we might use hypnosis or create an audio practice specifically for you.
Some people come with one very focused goal and only need a small amount of support. Others are navigating something more complex and benefit from working together over a number of sessions.
We decide that together.
More than one doorway in
One of the things that has changed in my work over the years is my understanding that we cannot always think our way into feeling differently.
The mind matters.
But so does the body.
So does the nervous system.
So does attention, imagination, breath, sensation, awareness and our capacity to experience ourselves beyond the constant commentary of thought.
My therapeutic background now sits alongside many years of mindfulness practice and teaching, and my work with therapeutic sound.
These are not interchangeable treatments and we won’t throw everything into every session.
But they have profoundly influenced the way I work.
I am interested not only in what you think, but in how you experience being you.
For clients seeing me in person, there may also be occasions where therapeutic sound can be integrated into our work if it feels appropriate.
What can we work with?
People come to me for many different reasons, including:
Anxiety & overthinking
Worry, rumination, feeling constantly “on”, anticipatory anxiety and difficulty switching off.
Stress & overwhelm
Feeling stretched, depleted, emotionally overloaded or unable to find space amongst everything you are carrying.
Confidence & self-belief
Imposter syndrome, self-doubt, performance anxiety and difficulty trusting yourself.
Fear & phobias
Including flying, medical procedures and specific situations or experiences.
Life transitions
Bereavement, menopause, retirement, becoming a parent, relationship changes, career changes, illness and changing identity.
Performance & preparation
Interviews, exams, public speaking, presentations, sport, medical procedures or other important events.
Patterns that keep repeating
When you know intellectually what is happening but find yourself returning to the same behaviour, avoidance or response.
Feeling stuck
Sometimes there isn’t a neat label.
You simply know that the way things are isn’t quite how you want them to remain.
About me...
I’m Katrina Berry.
I have worked as a therapist for more than 17 years and have extensive training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, mindfulness and clinical hypnotherapy.
I hold a Master’s degree with Distinction from Bangor University’s Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice and am a Senior Practitioner registered with the General Hypnotherapy Register.
But qualifications only tell you part of the story.
Over the years my work has become increasingly interested in the intersection between mind, body, attention, awareness and the nervous system - and in helping people develop a different relationship with their internal world rather than spending their lives battling against it.
My style is warm, curious, practical and collaborative.
There is space for difficult things.
There is also space for humour, humanity and the recognition that having a complicated human mind is something we all share.
Perhaps you don't need to know exactly what you need yet.
You might know precisely what you'd like help with. Or you may simply have reached a point where you know you would like some support.
Either is enough. We can start there.
