Who we are

Psychoanalyst

Matthew Bell is a psychoanalyst and founding member of the Farringdon Practice. His training with the British Psychoanalytic Association followed trainings at Birkbeck College, University of London, gaining his MSc. and the Society of Analytical Psychology. Matthew worked as a therapist in Holloway Prison (2006 – 2008) and Soho NHS (2004 – 2012), seeing individuals and co-facilitating a therapy group. He was also a Samaritan volunteer from 2000 to 2006. He started his private practice in 2009.

Matthew is Mental Health Champion for The City of London Corporation and is behind the setting up of the City Well-being Centre, which was based on the Farringdon Practice model and opened in 2020. As well as the BPA, Matthew is a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association and the British Psychoanalytic Council.

Attachment psychotherapist

Susanne Levin is an attachment based psychoanalytical psychotherapist and a founding member of The Farringdon Practice . She trained at The Bowlby Centre and is accredited by the UKCP.

Susanne has been working for 15 years with individuals of different backgrounds and is especially interested in the societal impact on peoples' well being as well as family dynamics.

Before starting her private practice Susanne worked at Women and Health and volunteered for several years at Maytree, a refuge for when feeling suicidal.

Susanne’s main emphasis would be on the utmost importance of knowing oneself as without self knowledge we are rudderless.

Susanne is TFP's clinical manager and the person you are most likely to speak or email with if you contact the practice.

Psychotherapist

Enrica Balestra MSc, MPhil is an integrative psychotherapist who trained at the Metanoia Institute. She is a member of the BACP, a clinical supervisor and is registered with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). She has over 16 years’ experience in private practice, employee assistance programmes, education and the voluntary sector. Alongside her private practice, she held the post of counsellor/coordinator in a Further Education College for many years. Originally from an academic background in comparative literature, Enrica draws from the humanistic and the psychodynamic tradition to help clients explore and move beyond their sometimes limiting and painful life stories. Enrica is Italian, fluent in English and conversant in French and has worked with a wide variety of clients from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, age, sexualities and disabilities. She has a special interest in trauma, narrative and the arts as well as in the way in which cultural norms and social expectations affect our sense of self and wellbeing. She has specialist training in Somatic Trauma Therapy, CBT and has extensive experience working with young adults.

Psychotherapist

Jo Wise, BA (Hons), MSc. is an experienced psychotherapist, working with patients individually, over long or short term periods, taking each person’s needs and circumstances into consideration. Motivated by a curiosity in people and their capacity to develop, she believes it is the task of the therapist to help people explore possible alternatives to their fixed ways of seeing the world and to their ingrained patterns of living – both of which may cause them to feel stuck in the past, or to feel consumed by present difficulties.

Jo has experience of working within the NHS, University counselling services and private practice. She is an accredited member of the BACP – British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. It ensures that all its members are appropriately trained and qualified. She adheres to the strict guidelines of the BACP Ethical Framework for Good Practice.

Jo works analytically to help people explore and make sense of difficult feelings and behaviours, and identify possible underlying causes of their distress. She works one to one with individuals, both on a short and long term basis, depending on the difficulties that each person wishes to explore and understand. Her experience of working with patients includes a wide range of emotional difficulties.

Psychodynamic psychotherapist

Leanne Hoffman is an experienced psychodynamic psychotherapist with a Postgraduate Diploma and MA in Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy and a registered and accredited member of the BACP – British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists.

Her focus is on helping people explore their thoughts, feelings and past to help relieve difficult emotional states, understand more about their patterns of behaviour and improve many areas of peoples lives like their stresses, anxieties, relationships and much more.

Leanne believes that once people have a better understanding of what drives their behaviour and their ways of interacting with others, there is the chance to truly flourish.

Leanne has also worked, for the last twenty years, as a consultant, coach and trainer specialising in organisational and individual development. In addition, she is a co-founder of HealthyMinds@Work a consultancy that helps organisations look after the mental and emotional health of employees.

Psychoanalytic psychotherapist

Louise Wardle is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist who works with adults both short and long term. She specialises in a range of clinical problems including depression, anxiety, trauma, anger, personality and relationship difficulties and bereavement.

I’m interested in helping you think about and explore what might be holding you back in your life now, and how that might be linked to past difficulties which can keep you stuck. We will work through what may feel overwhelming at the moment towards meaningful insight, personal growth and change.

Having previously worked in television production, Louise trained as a therapist at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust specialising in intensive adult psychotherapy. She is accredited by the British Psychoanalytic Council and the Tavistock Society of Psychotherapists. Alongside her private practice she works in the NHS as an adult psychotherapist.

Attachment psychotherapist

Svetlana Fleming is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist (UKCP) psychodynamic supervisor (BAPPS) and IPT therapist (IPTUK) and has extensive clinical experience of working both in the health service and private practice.

Svetlana offers psychodynamic psychotherapy to individuals interested in working through their emotional difficulties and understanding themselves at a deeper level which often involves exploration of their early life experiences.

Svetlana also offers consultations and treatment to individuals interested in time limited therapeutic work such as psychodynamic counselling and interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT).

Svetlana has considerable experience in supervising counselling psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors working in primary care.

Her special interests include treatments of chronic depression, generalised anxiety, relationship difficulties, complex bereavement and adjustment disorder.

She can offer therapy in English and Serbo-Croat.