Renate Ridings
Understanding Ourselves and Others Through Psychotherapy & Counselling
Hello
I’m Renate Ridings, a psychotherapist in training working in placement with adults online.
I’ve long been fascinated by the ways people experience themselves, relate to others, and make sense of the world around them.
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Why do some conversations leave us feeling understood while others create distance or misunderstanding?
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Why do certain people feel immediately familiar while others evoke frustration, discomfort, or defensiveness?
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Why do some people speak their minds easily while others struggle to express what they think or feel?
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Why do we continue using ways of relating that once protected us, but no longer serve us well?
Questions like these eventually led me towards psychotherapy.
What continues to interest me is the idea that much of human behaviour has an underlying logic, even when it appears confusing, contradictory, or self-defeating on the surface.
The ways people communicate, form relationships, protect themselves, and adapt to life’s experiences often make sense when viewed within the context of their life history and experience. Greater awareness can create a sense of freedom and possibility that may previously have felt out of reach.
I am particularly interested in the ways people communicate, navigate relationships, and make sense of themselves. Much of what people think, feel, and do becomes more understandable when viewed in the context of their experiences, relationships, and attempts to adapt to the world around them.
This includes the often complex gap between what is experienced internally and what is expressed externally.
Through articles and reflections, this website explores these questions and the patterns, adaptations, and ways of relating that emerge throughout life.
About my approach
People come to therapy for many different reasons.
Sometimes there is a clear difficulty — anxiety, overwhelm, relationship struggles, loss, loneliness, burnout, or a growing sense that life is becoming hard to manage.
Sometimes it is less clear-cut. You may feel disconnected from yourself, uncertain in your relationships, emotionally stuck, or aware that something isn’t quite working in the way you relate to yourself or others.
Many people find themselves:
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overthinking conversations long after they’ve happened
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feeling disconnected, even around other people
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struggling to say what they really need
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putting others first while losing touch with themselves
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feeling outwardly capable, but inwardly unsettled
Often, these experiences are not random. They can reflect ways of relating, coping, and adapting that once helped us stay, but no longer feel sustainable.
Therapy offers a space to slow things down and look more closely at these experiences — to better understand yourself, your relationships, and the patterns that may be shaping how you experience life.
I believe therapy should help people develop greater awareness of the ways they have learned to think, feel, cope, and relate to others over time. I work with the understanding that each person’s experience, relationships, and way of coping are unique to them, and deserve to be understood in the context of their own life.
Through therapy, people can begin to recognise patterns that may once have been necessary or helpful, but which may no longer support the life or relationships they want for themselves today.
I am currently training towards UKCP and UKATA accreditation and work with clients in clinical placement settings alongside my psychotherapy training.
Explore the blog for a clearer sense of how therapy works, different approaches, and what to consider along the way.