Work with me:
The Pain Matrix Recovery Programme
A place to be heard — and a practical way forward.
If you’ve been living with persistent pain or symptoms for months or years, you’ve probably already told your story many times. Working together starts with understanding that story properly — not just where it hurts, but how your symptoms behave, what you’ve been told, what you’ve tried and what you want your life to look like again.
My Pain Matrix Recovery Programme offers a personalised, evidence-informed approach for people living with persistent pain or symptoms.
Step 1
Start with a free 20-minute call
A relaxed, no-pressure conversation where you can tell me a little about what has been happening and ask any questions you have.
We’ll talk about whether your symptoms could fit a neuroplastic or a mixed presentation, whether this approach feels relevant, and whether we feel we could work well together.
Free
Step 2
Your assessment and first session
Before we meet, I’ll ask you to complete some health and symptom questionnaires so I can understand more about your medical history and what you have already tried.
We also look at how you currently respond to symptoms, what helps you cope, what you understand about this approach, how willing you feel to experiment with new ways of responding, and, importantly, what you would like to get back to.
This is where we begin building your individual pain matrix: looking at the patterns in your symptoms, the clues that may point towards neuroplastic pain, and any physical factors that may also be contributing.
By the end of the session, we should both have a much clearer idea of whether this approach is appropriate and what a useful way forward could look like.
WHAT CLIENTS SAY
Julie created a safe space and built a trusting relationship very quickly. I felt comfortable sharing my thoughts, experiences and feelings honestly.
Aoife K., Ireland
Step 3
Continue with the Pain Matrix Recovery Programme
The programme is designed around up to eight sessions, but you are never tied into eight. Some people may need fewer sessions; more complex or longstanding patterns may benefit from the full programme. We review what is changing as we go.
I think of this work as two scientists working together.
We form hypotheses, try carefully chosen experiments, notice what happens and use that information to decide what to do next. There is no expectation that every exercise will work perfectly. What happens is information, and we use it.
What we work on
✓ Understand your pain differently
Make sense of why symptoms can persist and what your own symptom patterns may be telling us
✓ Find your own evidence
Notice the changes, inconsistencies and triggers that help us understand the role of the brain and nervous system in your symptoms
✓ Reduce fear around symptoms
Use Pain Reprocessing Therapy, including somatic tracking and other practical exercises — to reduce fear around sensations and help the brain learn that they are less threatening.
✓ Build your own toolkit
Alongside Pain Reprocessing Therapy, we use practical skills such as helpful self-talk, breathing, tension-release practices, mindfulness, attention training and clinical hypnosis. I also draw on CBT to work with unhelpful thought and behaviour patterns, and ACT to help you respond differently to difficult thoughts, feelings and sensations.
✓ Change the patterns that keep the loop going
Work with attention, expectations, avoidance, tension, stress and emotional responses that may be keeping the protective pattern going
✓ Rebuild trust in your body
Gradually test what your body can do, build confidence and make more room for the life you want to be living.
Therapy doesn’t only happen in the session
The work between sessions is an important part of the process, but it is tailored to you.
You won’t be handed a generic set of tasks and expected to keep up. We agree small, realistic experiments and practices based on your symptoms, your goals, what we are learning together and what you can genuinely fit into your life.
Where useful, I may also create personalised hypnosis, visualisation or therapeutic audio recordings for you to use between sessions and keep afterwards. Hypnosis is never compulsory.
The aim is to give you skills you can increasingly use for yourself and not to make you dependent on therapy.
Sessions & pricing
Pain Matrix Recovery Programme
Designed around up to eight sessions, with progress reviewed as we go. There is no requirement to purchase or commit to all eight sessions in advance.
Free introductory call
20 minutes — Free
Assessment & first session
Up to 90 minutes — £120
Ongoing sessions
60 minutes — £80
Please see Terms and conditions
My credentials
✓ Higher Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (Hypno-CBT®) — Level 5, NCFE-developed, British Psychological Society CPD Quality Mark recognised
✓ Pain Reprocessing Therapy — trained with the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Centre, founded by Alan Gordon
✓ ACT training under Dr Russ Harris
✓ Specialist ACT for Chronic Pain training under Dr Kevin Vowles
✓ Integrative CBT informed by Judith Beck’s cognitive therapy model
✓ Member of the British Pain Society and the General Hypnotherapy Register (GHR)
✓ Fully insured (international coverage)
Still not sure whether this is right for you?
You don’t need to decide before we speak. The free introductory call is simply a chance to tell me what’s been happening, ask questions and see whether this feels like a useful next step.
Or you may like to visit my FAQs page