About me

I came to this work the long way round. Most of us do.

I'm Sabah Sharma — a trainee intersectional psychotherapist, qualified counsellor, and someone who has spent a long time doing her own work. I'm still doing it.

I was born in Delhi, grew up in the UAE, and live in Scotland. I have studied, lived and worked across the UK and internationally.

I know from the inside what it is to navigate multiple worlds at once — to code-switch, to hold yourself carefully across cultures, identities, and expectations that don't always speak to each other – while remaining true to your authentic self as it evolves deeper dimensions through life’s myriad experiences.

My Story: What brought me to this work

You don't need to read all of this before reaching out.

The complimentary consultation is simply a conversation — start there if you prefer.

In the summer of 2011, mid-workday in Dubai, my body simply stopped. Every joint seized. I drove myself to the ER — because calling for help didn't feel like an option in the moment. That was the first thing I eventually had to understand about myself. I was dismissed at the ER for not looking like I was in enough pain. I know something about that — the cost of always appearing to have it together, even in crisis.

The diagnosis was fibromyalgia. My neurologist was direct: medication for life, or address the root. Therapy was recommended — but inaccessible at the time. My family, without the language or awareness to hold complex chronic illness, were as supportive as their individual frames of references at the time enabled them to be — and we undertook a lot of learning, unlearning and re-learning together. Something that continues.

My own heritage — Indian, rooted in a civilisation that developed Ayurveda with eight lines of enquiry including bhoota vidya (the study of what obstructs psychological wellbeing) — held the holistic wisdom all along. Colonisation and conditioning fractured that inheritance. I found myself without a map, in the gap between worlds.

So I did the work myself — year on year, moment to moment, turning inward, through yoga, meditation, research, svadhyaya (compassionate self-study), and the painstaking self-interrogation that leaves no comfortable story intact. For over a decade. What I didn't yet have language for I now recognise clearly: early drivers of be strong, be perfect, hurry up, please others, try hard keeping me afloat — and beneath them, the quiet injunction I unconsciously absorbed along the way: don't be you.

It wouldn't be until 2023 that I entered dedicated weekly personal therapy and prioritised it — with a male, queer, South Asian therapist — experiencing what it felt like to be genuinely met, consistently, safely. It was profoundly healing. It was faster progress. It reminded me of what support and help can do for us - that everything doesn’t need to be carried alone, that I would be met and held in ways I needed if I took the risk.

My path in life and to qualification has been non-linear and unique — through early degrees in Economics, Sociology and HR Management to an MSc in Psychology, then discovering Transactional Analysis (TA) and recognising it as my framework; from Delhi to Mumbai to Dubai on to East Midlands, Brighton, Edinburgh and London — finally stepping into private practice and doing the work I want to do every single day in service of my clients. True to me, true to my values, ethical and real in its humanity.

How I practise

I have no interest in wearing different hats — presenting one carefully managed version of myself to clients while living another privately.

I practise within a relational and intersectional tradition of Transactional Analysis, as developed by the International Association for Relational Transactional Analysis (IARTA) and embodied in the pedagogy of TA East London Institute — both of which understand therapy as a co-created relationship in which the therapist's reflected-upon self is part of the work. I am not a blank screen. I am a real person, in a real relationship with you, working within clear ethical and supervisory boundaries.

I want to live at my svadharma, my ikigai — that place where what I am, what I know, what I have lived, and what the world needs all meet in the middle. Where I don't have to hide, and neither do you.

I also want to be honest about something that is part of the work itself. The warmth and authentic presence I bring into our relationship is real — and it exists within a clear therapeutic structure that holds us both.

In relational TA, we understand that strong feelings can emerge about the therapeutic relationship itself: a sense of deep connection, dependency, or old relational patterns finding their way into the room between us. Rather than something to manage or avoid, these moments are often where the most meaningful work happens. We will notice them together, name them with care, and explore what they mean for you. Where patterns of co-dependency, unhelpful attachment, or trauma bonding begin to form, we will work through them — gently, honestly, and with your growth at the centre. My sharing of my own experience is always in the service of your work. In the room, it is your life, your material, your pace.

I am spiritual, pan, migrant, and someone living at the intersection of many ongoing things — including, right now, the particular courage of building something new while life continues to happen around me. I bring all of that with care and ethical awareness. I believe that a therapist who has genuinely done their own work is a safer, more present, and more useful one.

Lived experiences that inform my work

I share the following not to foreground my own story, but because I want you to know that I may already understand something of what it is to sit where you are sitting — without needing it explained from scratch.

I have brought these experiences into my own therapy and continue to reflect on them in supervision. They inform my capacity for compassionate understanding.

I hold with humility the awareness that we each have unique experiences which may also share a common thread that connects us.

In our work together, they are not the subject — you are.

Across my own life, I have navigated and worked through:

Infertility, recurrent miscarriages and pregnancy loss
Endometriosis and complex non-visible chronic pain and disability
Navigating ADHD impacts · Trauma and its longer-term impact
Domestic abuse
Family estrangement
OCD and acute overwhelm
Disordered eating and coping patterns
Acquired poverty
Racism, harassment, bullying and discrimination
The impact of living across multiple cultures
Racialised identity and belonging
The migrant and expatriate experience
Low self-worth and the long work of rebuilding it
Grief and loss
Organisational inequity and the exhaustion of systems not built for people like us

What shapes my work

Relational and Intersectional Transactional Analysis (TA)

My core training is in relational integrative Transactional Analysis — a humanistic framework that asks: how did you learn to be you? It explores the patterns, scripts and survival strategies we built early in life, and how — with care and time — we can begin to move differently. I practice within a contemporary intersectional lens, grounded in the work of IARTA and TA East London Institute, which understands the therapeutic relationship as co-created, and the therapist's social and cultural self as part of the work.

Yogic philosophy and Kashmiri Shaivism

My practice is rooted in yogic philosophy — the yamas and niyamas, and the non-dual worldview of Kashmiri Shaivism, which understands the self as layered, energetic, dynamic, and always in relationship. I don't impose this on clients. It is not a framework I apply but a way of seeing — shaping how I listen, how I hold complexity, and why I believe deeply in each person's capacity to move toward wholeness on their own terms.

Somatic and embodied practice

As an accredited yoga teacher (RYT 200, Yoga Alliance), I bring somatic awareness, breathwork and body-based attunement into therapeutic work where it serves the client and with explicit client consent. The body holds what words sometimes can't reach.

Anti-oppressive and intersectional practice

Alongside my therapy training, I work professionally in diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging — supporting organisations across the UK and globally with cultural development and inclusive practice. This lens is inseparable from how I work as a therapist. I don't ask you to leave your 'race', your gender, your culture, your disability or your neurodivergence at the door. These are not separate from your inner life. They are your inner life. They are all welcome - all of you is.

I am an anti-racist, intersectional, poly- and ENM-affirming, trans-, LGBTQIA+ and non-binary-affirming, disability-inclusive and neurodivergent-affirming practitioner.

Areas of Early and Growing Specialism

I have particular experience and early, growing specialism in the following areas.

This means I bring genuine investment, personal understanding, and developing clinical skill to these topics — and also that I hold them with appropriate humility, continuing professional development, and the grounding of regular supervision.

I am not an authority or expert in any of these areas; I am a practitioner who is learning alongside you.

Trauma, PTSD and CPTSD
Chronic pain, disability and long-term health conditions
Infertility, recurrent miscarriages and reproductive grief
Peri/menopause and hormonal transitions
Domestic abuse (emotional, mental, financial, physical) and narcissistic abuse recovery
Acute and complex overwhelm and its resulting impacts
Migrant lives, expat experience and racialised identity
Racism, discrimination, belonging and living across multiple cultures
Bullying, harassment and challenging workplace experiences
LGBTQIA+, polyamorous, ethical non-monogamy and queer identity
Anxiety, depression and OCD
Disordered eating, body image, self-esteem and self-worth
Grief, sadness, loneliness and loss
Caregiving, carer and long-distance caring experiences
Attachment, co-dependency and relational patterns
Overwhelm, burnout and the exhaustion of high-functioning survival
Navigating ADHD impacts and neurodivergent experience

Explore how to get started

Important

Ethical Considerations and Approach

Training & Credentials

BA (Hons) Economics and Sociology — Durham University
MA HR Management and CIPD — Newcastle Business School
MSc Psychology (conversion) — Sheffield Hallam University
Level 4 Diploma in in Counselling Skills and Theory — Chrysalis Courses
Level 5 Professional Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling — Chrysalis Courses — ongoing
Certificate in Online and Telephone Counselling
Certificate in TA 101
Advanced Clinical Training in TA Psychotherapy (Level 7) — Connexus Institute (Brighton & Hove), Physis Scotland (Edinburgh), and TA East London Institute (ongoing, qualifying for Diploma in Intersectional Psychotherapy in July 2027)
RYT 200 Yoga Teacher — Yoga Alliance accredited and registered
130+ clinical practice hours; 150+ supervised skills practice hours
Professional bodies: UKATA · IARTA · ITAA · EATA · NCPS · BPS · BACP · UKCP (student member in training)

I am a trainee intersectional TA psychotherapist working within the scope of my current training and supervision.

Ethics, Accountability & Supervision

I am a trainee student member or registrant of the following professional bodies, working in accordance with their respective ethical codes:

UKATA · IARTA · ITAA · EATA · NCPS · BPS · BACP · UKCP

All my client work is conducted under regular clinical supervision with a qualified and experienced supervisor.

Supervision is not a formality — it is where I continue to grow, to be held accountable, and to ensure the work remains safe, ethical and in your best interests at all times.

If you have any questions about my training, my professional memberships, or how I work, please ask.

The Therapeutic Relationship

I believe the relationship between therapist and client is the most powerful instrument we have. Not the techniques. Not the frameworks. The relationship.

My approach is grounded in compassionate inquiry, unconditional positive regard, and a deep respect for your capacity to meet yourself — at your own pace, in your own way, with you as the expert of your own lived experience.

You won't get a blank screen. You'll get a human being, sitting with you, taking you seriously.