Melanie O'Brien, BACP

Melanie O'Brien works from a person-centred, client-focused approach. She offers a calm, respectful space for people feeling overwhelmed, stuck or disconnected. Melanie aims to help clients make sense of their experiences and feel less alone as they start to untangle difficult feelings.

Her practice focuses on concerns such as anxiety, low mood, grief, trauma and relationship difficulties. She also supports people dealing with addictions, eating issues, parenting strain, self-esteem and coping with life changes. Additional areas she addresses include attachment and abandonment issues, body image, chronic illness or pain, and caregiver stress.

Melanie trained in person-centred counselling and holds BACP accreditation, which is listed as BACP. She blends the person-centred stance with elements from other approaches when helpful, and adapts her pace to each person’s needs. This mix allows sessions to be grounded in the client’s own priorities while offering practical reflections.

Her style is described as gentle and honest; she listens with respect and offers observations when they may help. Melanie emphasises building trust so clients can speak openly about painful subjects and begin to try different ways of coping.

To begin, people are invited to use the site Start Therapy process to match with Melanie and schedule sessions. The subscription used for sessions can be cancelled at any time, and sessions vary in cost depending on location and therapist availability.

How Melanie’s person-centred approach works online

Client-centred therapy focuses on listening closely and treating the person as the expert in their own life. The therapist aims to reflect what the client says, offer empathy and accept feelings without judgement. This approach is useful for anxiety, low mood, grief and relationship concerns where feeling heard helps people make changes.

Melanie also brings in techniques from other approaches when they suit a person’s needs. These additional elements are used gently and at the client’s pace to help with patterns like unhelpful thinking, low self-esteem or coping after loss. The goal is to work together to find what feels most useful for you.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. Melanie will collaborate with each person to decide which methods to try, based on goals and preferences. That decision is reviewed as therapy progresses so the plan can change if needed.

Session formats are not specified in the biography, so please confirm current options before booking. Online work can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy week, reduce travel time and allow check-ins from different locations. It can also let people choose quieter moments, shorter check-ins or sessions without video when that suits their needs.