About Cathleen
Cathleen Brentnall offers calm, practical support for people facing anxiety, relationship strain, depression, trauma, grief and parenting stress. She focuses on what matters to each person and helps them move toward clearer goals. Cathleen presents herself in a warm, respectful way and aims to make sessions straightforward and useful.
Cathleen uses approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Client-Centred Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).
How Cathleen works
She explains options and works with people to choose approaches that suit their needs. Sessions are adapted to how each person learns and makes decisions. With ten years of experience and a BACP registration, Cathleen draws on a mixture of talking and practical exercises.
She helps people notice patterns, try new responses, and practise skills between sessions. The focus is often on small, achievable steps that reduce stress and improve day-to-day functioning. Cathleen also supports people dealing with issues such as self-esteem, career stress, sleep and eating problems, bipolar and compassion fatigue.
She helps with long-term conditions and the emotional impact of illness or caregiving. Concerns such as abandonment, codependency, communication difficulties and life transitions are also within her interest. Sessions are available across the United Kingdom and to international clients in English.
The initial process is straightforward and intended to get people talking about what matters most to them.
Cathleen lists 10 ways of working on the entry:
What Cathleen works with
The areas below are the ones Cathleen selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
- Parenting issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | BACP |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 10 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | United Kingdom |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How Cathleen’s approaches translate to online work
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people clarify their values and take small, meaningful steps even when feelings are difficult. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) focuses on spotting unhelpful thoughts and trying practical experiments to shift behaviours and mood. Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is used with trauma to reduce the intensity of distressing memories and associated reactions.Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. Cathleen will discuss these methods with each person and choose or combine techniques based on their goals, preferences and how they respond in early sessions. The plan evolves collaboratively rather than being fixed from the start.
Online work uses video calls, phone sessions, live chat or text-based messaging to make therapy flexible. Video is useful for face-to-face conversation and exercises, phone can be simpler when bandwidth is limited, and text or chat suits short check-ins or people who prefer writing. These options let people fit sessions around work, caregiving or travel while keeping continuity of care with a registered professional.
Start online instead of waiting
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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