Abida Haroon, BACP

Abida Haroon is a BACP counsellor who offers a calm, non-judgemental space to talk through difficult feelings. She presents counselling as a starting point for people wanting more self-awareness, resilience and clearer choices in life.

She aims to listen and reflect so clients can make sense of their experiences. Sessions focus on building self-acceptance and confidence through steady, practical conversation rather than jargon. The therapist uses an empathetic, person-centred stance to understand each person's perspective.

Abida has six years' experience and has supported people dealing with stress, anxiety, depression and grief. She also works with trauma and abuse, intimacy-related concerns, and issues around eating and sleeping. Her practice includes attention to attachment, caregiver stress, workplace difficulties and young adult issues.

Her background and culture inform her work, and she notes experience supporting women who have experienced domestic abuse. She can offer understanding around multicultural and religious difficulties that can affect family and relationship choices.

Sessions are offered in English, Punjabi and Urdu, and she accepts international clients. The counsellor encourages new clients to take the first step, reflect on what they want from therapy and then decide with her how to move forward.

Therapeutic approaches and online support

Abida draws on client-centred work to place the person's experience at the heart of therapy. This approach involves listening closely and reflecting what matters to the client so they can better understand their feelings and make choices that suit them.

She also uses Emotionally-Focused Therapy principles to help people identify and name difficult emotions and improve how they respond to relationship and attachment pain. Mindfulness therapy is used alongside these methods to teach simple attention and grounding practices that reduce overwhelm and aid better sleep.

Choosing the right approach is part of the early work in therapy. The therapist will discuss goals, preferences and practical needs, and together they will decide which combination of methods is most helpful. This collaborative process means the plan can change as progress is made.

Please confirm which remote session options are currently offered before booking, as formats are not specified here. Online work can make it easier to fit sessions around work, childcare and travel, allow shorter check-ins when needed, and offer an option that avoids commuting. Registered or accredited professionals can adapt techniques such as mindfulness or emotionally-focused exercises to work well in remote sessions.