Anna Sergent

I’m a UKCP-registered psychoanalytic psychotherapist. I trained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy at AGIP and have been working clinically since 2022. Alongside my private practice, I have worked in different mental health settings, including as a therapist volunteer within mind’s Psychosis Therapy Project, senior counsellor and assessment worker at a community counselling centre and, more recently, as a Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner at a university. This has given me experience of working with people across a range of difficulties and at very different points in their lives.

My main approach is psychoanalytic and psychodynamic, although my training was pluralistic and I draw on different ways of thinking about therapeutic work. I’m particularly interested in what happens beneath what we consciously know about ourselves, the patterns that repeat, the things that are difficult to put into words, and how our relationships and earlier experiences can shape the way we experience ourselves and other people.

As a therapist, I try to approach each person as a particular person rather than making assumptions about them based on a diagnosis, a difficulty, a specific symptom or a particular life experience. I listen very attentively to what is being said and also to what may be happening in the spaces around what the client says. I notice things that repeat, things that seem unclear or contradictory, and things that perhaps haven’t yet found words.

I believe clients experience me as warm, welcoming and engaged, although I do think there are moments when it is beneficial for the therapeutic process to step back as a therapist and give space to what emerges in the session. Creating a space where someone feels able to speak openly is very important to me. At the same time, I won’t always simply reassure a client or tell them what they want to hear. At certain points, I may ask a question that makes them pause, or draw their attention to something they hadn’t noticed before. I think some of the most valuable moments in therapy can be when something becomes visible or thinkable for the client through the dialogue, speaking with someone present, rather than me providing some sort of answer.

I see therapy as a space where we can become curious about a client’s particular experience, including the things that may be difficult to understand or put into words, and where something previously unsaid can gradually become possible to think about and articulate.

The Nest Club is an organisational member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).
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