Dr Emily Ollman-Hirt

Emily (she /her) is a practising Counselling Psychologist and Psychotherapist with fifteen years of experience working within the NHS and private sector. Emily finished her training in 2014 and received her professional doctorate qualification from the Metanoia Institute in London, accredited by Middlesex University. Emily is a member of the British Psychological Society and United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapists and she abides by their code of ethics.

 Emily is a clinical associate for London-based perinatal psychology service ‘Parenthood in Mind’ as well as for ‘Verbatim Therapy and Consultancy Services’ in Norfolk, where she lives with her family. Over the past fifteen years Emily has worked in various NHS settings within primary care, including Westminster IAPT service and Enfield Parent-Infant service as well as secondary care services such as Coombe Wood mother and baby unit in West London. Emily also has her own private practice spread between East London and Norfolk. 

Emily works with adults, couples and families. She specialises in psychological health during the perinatal period, as well as working with couples who have experienced pregnancy loss, infertility, or other reproductive trauma. In her own private practice Emily also works with individual adults who come into therapy for a wide range of reasons or factors that are impacting upon their mental health. Due to her broad training background, Emily has a grounding in various approaches, which allows her to be flexible in how she works with each individual:

“I try to listen to the therapeutic goals of the client before deciding upon what sort of approach might ‘fit’. Sometimes a client may be unsure what their immediate goals for therapy are, which would lead me to consider having a more open, explorative stance in the therapy. At other times, I might use a more behavioural (CBT-like) approach to support someone to actualise behavioural changes in their life. I believe that an understanding of a person’s past relationships is extremely important to help them understand their current difficulties, and I see therapy as a way of detangling oneself from old, painful relational habits. I try and work with transparency, which involves being clear about how therapy works and how we will measure when you have achieved your goals.”

Emily has published work in the area of ethnic identity and experiences of racial prejudice, and she wrote her doctoral thesis on the topic of intergenerational trauma from political violence.