I'm Valentina. You've been holding it together beautifully, and it's costing you. Together we work out what drives the anxiety and the burnout, then we change it. In English or in Spanish, whichever gets closest to the truth.
You're excellent at your job, reliable to a fault, and quietly braced all the time. Nobody at work would guess how loud it is in your head at 3am. The gap between how you seem and how you feel is exactly where we start.
You've rested and it didn't fix it, because burnout isn't a sleep debt. It's a pattern, usually an honourable one, of giving more than you have for longer than you should. Patterns can change, and you don't have to dismantle your whole life to change them.
Some things are only true in the language you first felt them in. With me you can work entirely in Spanish, entirely in English, or switch mid-sentence when one language holds something the other can't. Terapia en español, sin traducción interna.
Everything starts with a free 20-minute call, because you shouldn't have to choose a therapist from a website alone. Then we meet weekly, in Ancoats or online, in English or Spanish, and we do the work properly.
£70 ·50 minutes
Weekly one-to-one integrative therapy for anxiety, burnout and the exhausting business of appearing fine. In English, in Spanish, or moving between the two, whichever gets closest to the truth.
£400 ·6 sessions over 8 weeks
A structured six-session programme over eight weeks for anxiety that has outstayed its welcome. £400, or 2 × £200 if spreading it helps. Focused, practical and personal, with a beginning, a middle and an end you can see from the start.
20 minutes · free
Twenty minutes on the phone or over video, in English or Spanish. You tell me a little about what's going on, I tell you honestly whether I can help, and you decide in your own time. Nobody chases you afterwards.
I moved from Medellín to Manchester at nineteen, with two suitcases and the kind of English that gets you through a bus timetable but not a bad day. I know the specific tiredness of building a life in a second language: the constant low-level translating, the performing of an ease you don't feel, the way you can be competent all day and still feel far from yourself by evening. It took me years to name that tiredness. It's a large part of why I do this work.
I'm an integrative therapist and I specialise in anxiety and burnout, the twin engines of the white-knuckled life. My clients are usually excellent at coping. That's the problem. Coping is a skill, and like any skill it can quietly take over the whole repertoire until you can't remember doing anything else. My job is not to take your competence away. It's to make it optional.
Because people aren't one method. Some weeks you need to understand where a pattern began. Some weeks you need something practical for Thursday's meeting. Some weeks you mostly need to be heard, accurately, by someone who isn't tired of you. A good integrative therapist moves between those registers on purpose, and tells you what she's doing and why. That's the training, and it's also the point.
Sessions run in English, in Spanish, or in the mix that real bilingual life is actually lived in. This matters more than it sounds. Feelings have home languages. Some of my clients find that anger is easier in English and grief only tells the truth in Spanish. Whatever combination is yours, you won't spend your sessions translating yourself, terapia sin traducción interna, and you won't have to explain why your mother's voice in your head has an accent. And if you only speak English, none of this changes a thing about the quality of your hour.
You'll find me in a warm second-floor studio on Blossom Street in Ancoats, where the window faces west and the last sessions of the day happen in ridiculous golden light, or online from wherever you are.
BACP Registered Member
BACP is the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, the UK's main professional body for talking therapies. Registration means accredited training, a published ethical framework and ongoing clinical supervision.
The waitlist is open for autumn. Add your name with a line or two about what's going on, and I'll hold you a place and tell you honestly how long the wait looks.
As soon as a space opens we talk, on the phone or over video, in English or Spanish. You hear how I work, ask anything you like, and notice how it feels. If I'm not the right fit, I'll say so and point you to someone who is.
Weekly 50-minute sessions, same day, same time. We review openly as we go, and we finish when the work is done, not when the calendar says so.
For years I thought my options were falling apart or holding on tighter. Valentina showed me a third option. It turns out that's where my life was.
“Doing therapy in Spanish after years of doing it in English felt like taking off a coat I didn't know I was wearing. Some things I could finally say because I didn't have to translate them first.”
“I arrived burnt out and ashamed of it, convinced I just needed to try harder. Valentina is energising without ever being relentless. Six months on, I have my mornings back, and my sense of humour.”
Yes, really. I grew up in Medellín and Spanish is my first language. Sessions can run entirely in Spanish, entirely in English, or switch mid-sentence when one language holds something the other can't. There's no extra cost and no ceremony about it.
It means I trained across several approaches, person-centred, psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural among them, and I build the work around you rather than fitting you to a method. People aren't one method. Neither is good therapy.
You join through the contact form, and I hold you a place in the order you arrived. I'll give you an honest estimate of the wait, update you if it changes, and never bump you for anyone. If the wait is too long for what you're carrying, I'll say so and suggest good alternatives.
Twenty minutes, phone or video, no preparation needed. You say a little about what's going on, I explain how I'd approach it, and you ask whatever you like. Then you take your time deciding. There's no follow-up sales sequence.
Completely. Hope and rigour are not opposites. I'm BACP registered, in ongoing supervision, and we will go wherever the work needs to go, including the dark. I just refuse to believe that getting better has to feel like a waiting room.
Functioning is not the bar. Some of the most anxious people I've worked with have immaculate calendars and glowing performance reviews. If holding it together is costing you more than anyone can see, that's reason enough.
For the anxiety programme, six, that's the point of it. For open-ended work it depends, and anyone quoting you a number from a website is guessing. We review openly as we go, and stopping is always yours to choose.
Yes, within the standard safety limits every ethical therapist works to. If I believed you or someone else were at serious risk I would need to act, and I explain exactly how that works, in plain words, before we start.
The practice is a second-floor studio on Blossom Street in Ancoats, a few minutes' walk from Piccadilly and the Northern Quarter. The window faces west, which means the last sessions of the day happen in ridiculous golden light. Online sessions run across the UK.
Studio 4, 24 Blossom Street, Ancoats, Manchester M4 5DH
Twenty minutes on the phone or over video, in English or Spanish. You tell me what's going on, I tell you honestly whether I can help, and you get a feel for how I work before anything is decided. The waitlist is open for autumn: join it and I'll hold you a place, then we'll book your call as soon as a space opens.
Join the waitlistThere is a short waitlist at the moment — join it and I’ll be in touch as soon as a space opens.