DR. LYDIA FRENCH
PhD, MSc, MSt (Oxon), CPsychol, AFBPsS, MBACP, MUPCA (Accred)
ABOUT ME
EXPERIENCE
For more than twenty years I have worked with people at the edges of things: infertility, loss, identity, the moments when a life no longer quite fits the person living it. People arrive with symptoms: depression, anxiety, exhaustion. That is where the work begins. But it rarely centres there. It centres on the moment you sense that the life you have built, however successful or well-managed it appears, is no longer quite yours.
I hold a PhD in Medicine from the University of Bristol and a four-year clinical Masters in Psychodynamic Practice from the University of Oxford, with deep grounding in Jungian psychology, CBT, and attachment-based approaches, and specialist clinical training in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy through MAPS.
I take the interior life seriously: the unconscious, the symbolic, the aspects of experience that resist neat explanation. My own path has been shaped by inquiry that goes beyond the formal: by depth work, by direct encounter with altered states of consciousness, by the kind of searching that does not resolve so much as deepen. I do not offer that as a credential. I offer it as context for the quality of presence I bring.
I work with a small number of people at any one time. This is not incidental: it is a considered and deliberate part of how I practise. Genuine depth work is embodied work. When I am with you, you have my whole attention. I stay alive to that work by remaining an active researcher and thinker, someone for whom the philosophical and clinical questions are never quite separate. I have a research project in development at Oxford exploring these questions at the intersection of psychotherapy and psychedelic experience, you can read more about it here, and I consult on psychedelic clinical trials. It is how the work breathes.
Every person I work with is singular. I learn from them as much as I may offer. That is not a disclaimer. It is the nature of this work.
PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY
Most people who find their way to psychodynamic psychotherapy have already tried the other things. They have been through the self-help, the habit-stacking, the cognitive reframing, the talking it through. They are not without insight. They are without relief.
This is not a failure of intelligence or will. It is a consequence of working only at the surface of things.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy works differently. It is grounded in the understanding that much of our emotional life operates below the level of conscious thought, shaped by experiences and ways of relating that formed long before we had the language or the distance to examine them. These patterns persist not because we are broken or stuck, but because they once served a genuine purpose. They are, in a sense, loyalties that have outlived their usefulness.
The work involves bringing these patterns slowly into awareness, not through analysis alone, but through the living experience of the therapeutic relationship itself. What emerges between two people in a consulting room is not incidental. It is the material.
Over time, this process creates genuine movement: not the resolution of feeling, but a different relationship with it. Greater freedom. More authentic choice. A self that is less managed and more inhabited.
This work is unhurried by design. It asks something of you. And it offers something in return that more bounded approaches cannot: the possibility of real and lasting change.
HOW I WORK
I work with adults online via Zoom and, by arrangement, in person. I see a small number of clients and this is deliberate: the work I do asks a great deal of me as well as of you, and I will not offer what I cannot fully give.
I hold the frame of this work seriously. I am in regular supervision and in my own ongoing personal therapy. I believe that a therapist who is not themselves accountable to this process cannot ask it of anyone else. It is not a professional requirement I fulfil. It is a commitment I return to because the work demands it.
I have particular experience working with people who require a high degree of privacy: professionals, public figures, and those whose circumstances call for careful discretion. Confidentiality is not something I treat as procedural. It is foundational.
I also work with people who have had psychedelic experiences they do not know how to integrate, or who are drawn to depth work that takes the full range of human experience seriously. This is a place where that conversation is possible.
A note on AI: these platforms are powerful, and I welcome you bringing what they offer. But they are built to answer the questions you already know how to ask, which means they will affirm you, soothe you, and return you to yourself. What they cannot do is ask you the question you have never thought to ask. That question will not comfort you. It will unsettle you. It will leave you unaffirmed and slightly off-balance. And that is precisely where something new becomes possible.
All enquiries are read by me personally and responded to with care.
QUALIFICATIONS & ACCREDITATIONS
PhD in Medicine (Bristol)
MSt in Psychodynamic Practice (Oxon)
MSc Health Psychology
BSc (Hons) Psychology
Professional Certificate in Investigational MDMA-Assisted Therapy for PTSD. MAPS International Therapist Training (Sarajevo)
Professional Certificate in Somatic Embodiment & Regulation (Linda Thai)
Chartered Member (CPsychol) & Associate Fellow (AFBPsS) of the British Psychological Society. 110065
IPT Professional Member.
UPCA Accredited Clinical Member. 3031
BACP Registered Member. 404658
UKCP Accredited Member. 2011174170
I am currently in training at the Tavistock, London, undertaking their Advanced Standing qualification in Couple Psychodynamic Psychotherapy.
HOW TO WORK WITH ME
1
GET IN TOUCH
You get in touch using the short form below.
I will read your message and send you a link to my diary, so you can find a time that suits you for an initial conversation.
2
INITIAL CONVERSATION
We begin with an informal 30-minute conversation online.
This is a space for you to ask questions, and for us to get a sense of whether working together feels right.
3
BEGINNING THE WORK
If you decide to go ahead, I usually suggest we begin with four weekly sessions.
This offers a contained way to experience the work. especially if therapy is new or you are unsure.
From there, if you wish to continue we simply carry on and let the work deepen.
GET IN TOUCH
I currently operate a waiting list.
All enquiries are read carefully and responded to promptly by me. If I am unable to offer an appointment immediately, I will let you know the likely timeframe and discuss next steps.
If I am not the right person to work with you, I will say so and, where appropriate, help you consider other options.
PHONE
07966 034483