About Me

Hi, I’m Rachel (she/her), an accredited, LGBTQ+ affirmative, trauma-informed therapist in Shipley (near Bradford and Leeds). I work online with people across the UK. I’m passionate about working with people who have always felt different in someway to help them improve their relationships and better manage anxiety. I have a particular interest in working with people from difficult/dysfunctional family backgrounds to help them overcome challenges and build lives they love. I also have specialist experience and training as an LGBTQ+ therapist.

I never set out to become a therapist, in fact if you told past me that I would be, she’d be very suspicious about where you were getting your information. If we did the year-book thing in the UK I might have been voted the ‘person least likely to become a therapist’.

So, although it might be the biggest cliché going in the mental health field, it really is fair to say that it’s been a journey to get to this point.

When I trace it back, there are threads that led me here. Because of the challenges I’ve faced, I’ve long been passionate about reducing stigma around mental health and have written zines, blogs and articles and spoken to groups on the subject. I’m a former English student and current bookish type and I love hearing people’s stories and making sense of things.

Most instrumental to me ending up here though is my lived experience of the life changing effect of good therapy. I’ve picked myself up and rebuilt the pieces, so I know it’s possible. I’ve also learnt a lot about therapy and mental health through my training, lived experience and client work and I love sharing this with people and seeing them change too. I know what it’s like to be sitting in the other chair in the therapy room – how scary and vulnerable it can be to open up to a stranger and because of this I try to be as welcoming and approachable as possible, particularly at the start of therapy.

Work With Me

RACHEL KAYE- LGBTQ+ affirmative, trauma informed therapisT

I have over 5 years’ experience as a therapist, including working for an LGBTQ+ charity, in private practice, and supporting staff and students at an FE college. I’m a BACP accredited therapist (which means I’ve met the organisation’s higher standard as a competent, ethical and independent practitioner). My previous work in University and Arts settings and participation in activist/queer/feminist communities means I know first-hand the joys and challenges these spaces can bring.

I have particular experience and interest in supporting clients facing workplace burnout and stress, navigating high pressure environments and work life balance, helping them to be their authentic selves.

My background also informs my understanding that mental health is interconnected with our wider environment, including experiences of discrimination and marginalisation, living / working conditions, social support and access to health care.

I am committed to making my practice as inclusive as I can, particularly to those who have previously struggled to find a therapist who understands and values their perspective, identity and experiences. I often work with clients who have experienced therapy that wasn’t queer affirming, or that didn’t bring them the lasting change they were looking for. Alongside my work in private practice, I currently work with the lgbtq+ charity Yorkshire MESMAC, an organisation who provide free access to counselling. I am committed to examining my own areas of privilege and am educating myself as I strive to make my practice as anti-oppressive as possible – including undertaking training on the impact of racism, neurodiversity, class and disability.