Dilshini Sandhu, BACP

Dilshini Sandhu is a BACP counsellor who describes her work as warm, collaborative, and rooted in respect. She brings a heart-centred presence to sessions and aims to create space for people to breathe and speak about what matters most to them.

Her background includes study in Music and Psychology, and an MSc in Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London. She trained as a psychotherapeutic counsellor at the Metanoia Institute and is currently undertaking a Doctorate in Counselling Psychology and Psychotherapy focused on implicit bias and therapeutic relationships.

She helps people dealing with stress, anxiety, grief, low self-esteem and depression. She also pays attention to trauma and abuse and to challenges such as chronic illness, caregiver strain, body image and cancer-related concerns. Additional focus areas include attachment and abandonment, communication problems and codependency.

Her way of working draws on client-centred principles and elements from emotionally-focused practice. Sessions aim to be sensitive to cultural background and lived experience, particularly where intergenerational expectations or cultural stigma affect how people seek help.

In sessions she listens for what is most important to each person and adapts her approach to fit those goals. The emphasis is on exploring feelings, building understanding and finding workable ways to manage difficult moments. She encourages creative expression when it helps people find new perspectives.

How her approaches shape online therapy

Client-Centred Therapy focuses on the person in front of the counsellor. It emphasises listening, empathy and meeting people where they are. This approach helps when someone needs a space to be heard and to build understanding of their own feelings.

Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) attends to emotions and patterns in close relationships. It helps people recognise emotional responses and change repetitive ways of relating that cause distress. This can be useful for worries tied to attachment, abandonment or communication struggles.

Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The counsellor will discuss goals, preferences and what feels helpful, and then adapt methods in a collaborative way. Clients take an active role in shaping the focus of sessions.

For practical arrangements, confirm the specific session options before booking because formats are not listed in the biography. Online work can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy life, reduce travel time and allow shorter check-ins when needed. It can also suit quieter surroundings or moments when being on camera is not desirable. Registered or accredited professionals can help clients choose session lengths and rhythms that fit day-to-day routines.