Dr. Jo Parkinson

Dr Joanna Parkinson is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist, an HCPC registered Practitioner Psychologist and a UKCP registered Existential Psychotherapist. At London Trusted Therapy she works with individuals, couples and families from an existential and relational standpoint, holding in mind not only what a person is struggling with but what that struggle means to them and how they are living alongside it.

She was awarded her Doctorate in Counselling Psychology and Psychotherapy by NSPC and Middlesex University, where her research explored mothers’ lived experience of motherhood — the tension of caring for another while continuing to become oneself. That interest in relationality, identity and the demands of care runs through her clinical work, particularly with clients navigating parenthood, family life and questions of who they are becoming.

Joanna is highly experienced in couples work and draws extensively on the Gottman Method, the research-based approach developed from decades of observational study of what allows relationships to endure. In practice this gives couples something concrete to work with: a clear picture of the patterns driving conflict, practical skills for repair and de-escalation, and structured attention to friendship, intimacy and shared meaning. She combines this with her existential training, so that alongside the practical work there is room to ask what each partner wants this relationship to be for.

Her wider clinical experience spans anxiety, depression, trauma, identity concerns, neurodiversity and relationship difficulties, developed across placements at Dilemma Consultancy, under the supervision of Professor Digby Tantam.

She offers sessions in both English and Polish, and works with clients for whom questions of language, culture and belonging form part of the therapeutic conversation.

Alongside her clinical practice at London Trusted Therapy, Joanna teaches at NSPC as a lecturer and module tutor on postgraduate psychotherapy and counselling psychology programmes, covering lifespan development, attachment theory, families and systems, and existential perspectives. She supervises doctoral research and provides clinical supervision to trainee and qualified psychotherapists, supporting reflective practice and ethical decision-making.

Her earlier career included coordinating community mental health services for the Royal Mencap Society, early intervention work in autism with PEACH, telephone crisis counselling, and casework supporting victims of crime and traumatic incidents — experience that informs the steadiness and pragmatism she brings to the consulting room.