About the founder
A clinician who understands the work.
Aria & Vellum was founded by a senior psychotherapist with twenty years’ experience in the arts, media and mental health. The practice grew out of a simple observation: creative lives need a particular kind of privacy, and a particular kind of care.
Background
Twenty years of sitting with extraordinary pressure.
I trained as an integrative psychotherapist, with a strong psychoanalytic sensibility, and have spent the better part of two decades working with people whose private lives sit uncomfortably close to their public work. That has meant performing artists at every stage of their careers, writers wrestling with a second novel, executives in music and publishing managing impossible contracts, and the young talent suddenly expected to become a public object.
Before founding Aria & Vellum, I worked in NHS mental health services, private practice, and as a consultant to arts and media organisations trying to build better duty-of-care frameworks. Across all of it, the same theme recurred: creative people often avoid help because they do not believe the person on the other side of the room understands the world they live in.
I started this practice to change that. We speak the language of release cycles, options, holding deals, principal photography, press tours, opening nights and publication days. We know that a creative block can be a symptom, not a failing, and that the disorientation of sudden fame is a real clinical event, not a vanity.
My work is registered and insured, and I hold senior accreditation with the major professional bodies. But what matters most to the people who sit with me is simpler: they are in a room where nothing needs to be performed.
Why this work
The work chose me, and I chose it back.
“I built this practice so that artists, actors, writers and the people who protect them could find a room where nothing is performed.”
A lifelong connection to the arts
Theatre, music and publishing have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. That familiarity is what allows me to hear what is really being said beneath the industry language.
A belief in tailored care
No creative life is identical to another. Sessions are shaped around the person in front of me — their rhythm, their deadlines, their touring schedule, their manuscript, their opening night.
Get in touch
Begin with a quiet conversation.
Whether you are considering therapy for yourself, your roster, or your organisation, the first step is a confidential, unhurried conversation.