Deborah Smith
Practical support for trauma and addiction recovery
About Deborah
Deborah Smith helps people who are feeling overwhelmed by addiction, relationship strain, trauma, parenting challenges, depression, anxiety or grief. She speaks plainly and listens carefully to understand each person's story. Deborah believes people already hold many strengths they can draw on to change their situation.
She aims to make the first steps less daunting and more manageable. With 11 years of experience, Deborah uses approaches that focus on how relationships and past events shape current feelings and behaviours.
Background and approach
She draws on attachment-based work to look at patterns in close relationships. She also uses client-centred ways of working that put the person’s priorities first. Mindfulness and trauma-focused techniques are used when it helps to calm distress or process difficult memories.
Sessions are practical and paced to each person. Deborah helps clients spot unhelpful patterns, build coping skills and try small experiments between meetings. She also pays attention to issues like body image, codependency, control struggles and dissociation when they come up.
Deborah has a BACP credential, which denotes registration with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. She is based in the United Kingdom and works in English. Her background includes substantial work around drug and alcohol addiction, domestic violence, and veteran and armed forces issues.
People can expect a collaborative atmosphere where goals are set together. Deborah supports work on compulsions, obsessive thinking, feelings of emptiness, fatherhood issues, guilt and shame, and the practical impacts of divorce and separation.
What Deborah works with
How Deborah works
Listed by Deborah among the ways they work.
Listed by Deborah among the ways they work.
Listed by Deborah among the ways they work.
Listed by Deborah among the ways they work.
Sessions & fees
How Deborah’s approaches work online
Attachment-based work looks at how past and current relationships shape feelings and behaviour. Online sessions can explore patterns in how someone connects, and help develop new ways of relating that reduce conflict and loneliness.Client-centred therapy focuses on the person’s own goals and pace. The therapist listens without judgement and helps people find their own solutions. This approach is useful for depression, stress and identity concerns because it honours each person’s priorities.
Finding the right approach is part of the process. Deborah will talk with each person about their needs, goals and preferences and then agree on which methods to use. That collaborative planning can change as work progresses and new priorities emerge.
Online therapy offers practical flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation from different locations. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be easier during busy days. Live chat and text-based messaging suit shorter check-ins, focused reflections or people who prefer typing over speaking. These options make it simpler to fit therapy around work, caregiving or travel while keeping sessions consistent and accessible.
| Session length | Typically 50 minutes |
|---|---|
| Client ages | Adults, 18 and over |
| Fees | Subscription via BetterHelp, cancel anytime |
| Insurance | Not billed directly |
Questions people ask
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Where is Deborah based and what credential does she hold?
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Areas of focus
What this therapist works with
Most often
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Body image
- Codependency
- Control issues
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Fatherhood issues
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- LGBT
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 11 years
- Registered with
- BACP
- Languages
- English
