About Joanne
Joanne Ruff uses attachment-based and client-centred approaches to help people facing stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, grief, low self‑esteem and depression. She brings 15 years of experience working with adults in the United Kingdom and offers straightforward, compassionate support. Joanne aims to make the first steps toward change feel manageable and clear.
Joanne focuses on building a trusting space where clients can talk about difficult feelings without fear of judgment.
How Joanne works
She listens carefully and adapts sessions to what each person needs in the moment. This can mean gentle exploration of past relationships, practical techniques for coping with anxiety, or guided work on painful memories. Her work includes helping people process loss and grief, rebuild motivation, and strengthen self‑worth.
She also supports those dealing with chronic illness, caregiver stress, body image or dissociation, and a range of personality-related concerns. Sessions aim to be practical and relatable, with small steps that add up over time. Joanne uses EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing - when appropriate to address traumatic memories.
She combines this with a client-centred stance that keeps the person’s goals central. The mix of approaches helps tailor support to each situation. She offers sessions by video, phone, live chat or text-based messaging to fit different needs and lifestyles.
Getting started involves a short matching questionnaire and then scheduling a time that suits the client. Joanne works with people who want steady, empathetic help to move forward.
Joanne lists 3 ways of working on the entry:
What Joanne works with
The areas below are the ones Joanne selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | BACP |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 15 |
| 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 Joanne's Approaches Work Online
Joanne uses attachment-based work to look at how past relationships affect current feelings and reactions. This approach helps people understand patterns in closeness, trust and fear so they can make different choices in relationships and everyday life.She also works in a client-centred way, which means sessions follow the person’s concerns and pace. The counsellor listens closely, reflects what she hears and helps clients set goals that feel achievable.
EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is offered when trauma memories are a focus. It involves guided attention and structured processing to reduce the intensity of distressing memories and to help people notice safer, more balanced beliefs about themselves.
Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work. Joanne explores the client’s goals, history and preferences and together they choose what to try first. This collaborative process means the plan can change as needs evolve.
Online sessions by video or phone make it easier to attend from different locations, while live chat and text messaging allow shorter check‑ins or ongoing support between calls. Video is useful for deeper conversation and EMDR work, phone calls suit people who prefer not to be on camera, and messaging can fit into busy days or provide brief reflections after a session.
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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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