Sharon McHugh, BACP

Sharon McHugh is a counsellor registered with the British Association for Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP) with seven years' experience. She works with people carrying anxiety, trauma and the effects of a difficult upbringing. Sharon also names codependency, addictions, relationship and intimacy issues among the concerns she supports.

She runs sessions that are led by the client. Sharon invites people to bring whatever feels important that week and she will ask questions to help clarify what is happening. At the first meeting she discusses goals and what each person hopes to get from counselling, then they agree a straightforward plan together.

Sharon draws on client-centred work alongside cognitive behavioural tools and solution-focused techniques. She also uses elements of dialectical behaviour therapy and hypnotherapy when appropriate. In practice this means she listens first, helps spot unhelpful thoughts and patterns, and looks for small, practical steps that make daily life easier.

Her background includes work in private practice and external agencies supporting people with stress, grief, depression and trauma who learned early coping strategies to stay safe. She describes how those strategies can later look like people-pleasing, low self-esteem or feeling empty inside, and she helps people identify those patterns.

Sessions are aimed at helping people understand their present responses and try different ways of handling difficult feelings. Sharon encourages clear goal-setting, short-term skills to manage distress, and reviewing progress as work continues.

How therapeutic approaches translate to online work