Summar Ali
Compassionate, practical therapy for life’s challenges
About Summar
Summar Ali offers calm, straightforward support for people facing stress, anxiety, grief and difficult life changes. She works in a warm, non-judgemental way and helps people make sense of painful experiences. Summar aims to build trust quickly so practical work can begin soon.
She uses several psychological approaches and adapts them to each person’s needs. Sessions often focus on managing overwhelming feelings, practical coping strategies and improving everyday relationships. She also draws on work with trauma, addiction and bereavement to help people rebuild safety and routine.
Background and approach
Summar has 11 years of experience in mental health settings. Her background includes work in children and adolescent mental health services, a school counselling role, drug and alcohol services, bereavement support and sexual trauma work at a local charity. She has also lectured at the University of Southampton and at the Anna Freud Centre.
Her academic qualifications include a Bachelor of Arts in Counselling and Psychotherapy, a Postgraduate Certificate in Evidence-Based Interventions for Children and Young People’s Mental Health, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Supervisory Skills. She holds a Higher Education Certificate in Academic Practice and HE Fellowship status.
Outside clinical work she practises animal-assisted therapy and continues professional learning, including continuing professional development in the neurobiology of trauma. Sessions are offered in English and she sees clients in the United Kingdom and internationally.
What Summar works with
How Summar works
Listed by Summar among the ways they work.
Listed by Summar among the ways they work.
Listed by Summar among the ways they work.
Listed by Summar among the ways they work.
Listed by Summar among the ways they work.
Listed by Summar among the ways they work.
Sessions & fees
How her approaches translate to online therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and choose values-based actions instead. It is useful for stress, anxiety and coping with life changes by teaching simple exercises to refocus on what matters. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT, looks at the links between thoughts, feelings and actions and offers practical tools to change patterns that cause distress. CBT often helps with low mood, sleep problems and anxiety by using short, structured tasks. Attachment-Based Therapy pays attention to early relationships and how they shape current connections; it can help with trust, intimacy-related worries and attachment issues.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will talk with each person about symptoms, goals and preferences and suggest which methods might suit best. That choice is reviewed and adjusted as therapy progresses so the plan stays relevant.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat or text-based messaging to fit different schedules. Video lets people use visual cues for deeper conversations, phone can be easier when bandwidth is low, and text options are useful for brief check-ins or ongoing support. These formats make it simpler to fit therapy around work, caregiving or travel while still using the same therapeutic tools.
| 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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Areas of focus
What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 11 years
- Registered with
- BACP
- Languages
- English
