Sarah Tolley, NCPS

Sarah Tolley is a counsellor with ten years' experience working in the United Kingdom. She holds NCPS and has worked in independent practice and educational settings. Sarah supports people facing stress, anxiety, low mood and trauma, and she also helps with anger, self-esteem and depression.

She has worked with a wide range of people from diverse socioeconomic, ethnic and religious backgrounds. Her experience includes supporting people in the LGBTQ+ community and working with transgender clients. Sarah has also spent time supporting adolescents and adults in school settings where she responded to serious distress and suicidal thoughts.

Sarah uses a practical, solution-focused style in sessions. She focuses on helping people build self-belief, improve self-esteem and find ways to manage strong emotions. Sessions aim to be approachable and straightforward, with an emphasis on small, achievable changes.

She draws on approaches that help people understand their relationships and patterns, and on tools to manage thoughts and feelings in the moment. Therapy can include work on attachment issues, relationship struggles, and coping strategies for anxiety or depression. Sarah aims to create a calm, respectful space where people can speak honestly and begin to make changes.

Her background across different settings means she is used to adapting her way of working to what each person needs. People who want a clear, pragmatic approach to managing emotion and improving self-worth may find her style a good fit.

How therapy approaches translate to online work

Attachment-based work looks at how past relationships shape current feelings and reactions. Online sessions can be used to identify unhelpful patterns in relationships and practise new ways of relating. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT, focuses on how thoughts, feelings and actions link together. In an online setting it can mean working through thought patterns, trying practical exercises, and setting small behavioural tasks between sessions.

Finding the right approach is part of the process. The therapist will discuss goals, preferences and what feels most useful, and will adapt methods in collaboration with each person. That way the work stays focused on the issues the client wants to change.

Confirm the exact session formats before booking, as the biography does not list them. Online work can make it easier to fit therapy around daily life, for example by reducing travel, allowing shorter check-ins during busy days, or avoiding the need to be on camera if that helps someone engage. Many people find remote sessions helpful for keeping continuity when life is busy or when meeting in person is difficult, and the therapist will help decide the best way to make therapy practical and workable for each person.