Jo Sara - Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist

Jo is a UKCP accredited attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist.  

Attachment is about understanding early experiences in relationships that shape how we relate to other people throughout our lives. This also means that creating a safe environment for someone to discuss their issues is the first goal of therapy. 

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is about understanding how someone’s current difficulties connect with experiences in the past in ways that aren’t always obvious.    

Jo works in a relational way, which means she is interested in how someone understands their own experience, and thinks about how the therapy can be shaped to best support that person. In this way Jo’s approach is caring, direct when needed, open-minded to the choices an individual makes, non-judgemental, and supportive in helping someone make the changes that would improve their life. Jo is able to offer time-specific therapy, long-term therapy or open-ended therapy.  

Jo trained as an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist so that she could support people with a broad range of difficulties. In Jo’s clinical practice she has worked with a focus on difficulties that arise from attachment experiences, including fear of relationships, avoidance in relationships, and anxiety in relationships. Jo also has experience working with a wide range of sexual difficulties, emotional difficulties, relational difficulties and behavioural difficulties. Jo has worked with people who have had early trauma, and is also able to work with people who may only experience trauma or difficulties later in life. Sometimes people come to therapy not really knowing if they have connections to any of these areas, but want something in their lives to change and that is something Jo can support people with too.   

Jo has worked in both the NHS and forensic settings, and places a strong importance on regular supervision and continuing professional development, given how much she believes we continue to learn about ourselves through both reflection and developments in science.