Jumanah Younis

I see clients on Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 5pm at the Barnsbury Therapy Rooms in North London. 

I offer a free, 15-minute introductory phone call where we can briefly discuss the issues bringing you to therapy and my way of working. To arrange, please email me your name and phone number with your availability to jyounistherapy@gmail.com.

Welcome to my profile. Looking for a therapist can feel overwhelming at times, so I hope this information helps you to decide if I might be a good fit for you.

You may be looking for therapy as a result of a difficult incident - a relationship breakdown, career issue, or traumatic event - or after reflecting on a pattern in your life or behaviour for some time. As a humanistic therapist, I aim to support you to explore the problems you are experiencing in a non-judgemental and holistic way.

Humanistic therapy focuses on subjective experience - how it feels for you as a unique individual to go through what you are experiencing. We all experience the world through a different lens based on our bodies, relationships and the kinds of resources we did or didn't have growing up. A holistic approach means thinking about how this context affects and interacts with your experiences.

Another aspect of humanistic therapy is a focus on the body. As a therapist, I don't see the mind and body as separate or opposite but rather interrelated realms. This means that I pay attention to the feelings I experience in my body in the therapy room - my felt sense - and may ask about yours, as well as exploring thoughts and feelings.

Given that we exist in the world with and around others, humanistic therapy places importance on understanding your relationships, past and present, and how these may have shaped what you expect from others and for yourself today. These dynamics may emerge in our relationship as therapist and client, so I pay attention to that and may bring it into our discussions.

I began to train as a counsellor after five years working in domestic and sexual violence support services, a specialist insight which I bring into my counselling practice. Violence and abuse, whether it happens once or over a period of time, within a family context or out in society, can generate trauma, an alteration in the mind and body's responses that continues after the event/s have ended. 

To heal from trauma means to integrate the traumatic experience into the story of our lives. This can be slow, sometimes painful and frustrating work, and it can also be nourishing, meaningful, and even life-changing. I believe that healing is not linear, and that it  happens in relationship. This is why the therapy relationship is a focal point of the way I work.

However, the therapy relationship also takes place in the context of the world outside the therapy room. This might mean we have different experiences of gender, race, sexuality and disability, among other things. I acknowledge that these factors affect our experiences both as a client and a therapist and therefore are relevant to our work.

I have a specialism in working with gender, sexual and relationship diversity, having worked as a therapist for two years with MindOut, an LGBTQ+ mental health service in Brighton. I have worked with clients who are questioning their gender identity, are in the process of transitioning, or have already transitioned. I have also worked with clients who practice polyamory or non-monogamy, or who want to discuss sex and sexuality in relation to kink, chemsex, erectile dysfunction and other issues.

As a person of colour I also have a particular focus on how race affects people of colour's experiences. I have supported Black people and people of colour with discussing experiences of racism and racial trauma, cultural issues to do with being first or second generation migrants, and questions related to religion and spirituality, including but not limited to religious trauma.

The first session is used as a consultation and is usually 60 minutes. This gives us time to discuss the issues that are bringing you to therapy in more depth and see if we are a good fit to work together.

After the consultation, all future sessions are 50 minutes and are weekly, at the same time each week. The consultation session is charged at the same rate as ongoing therapy, which is £70. 

Limited concession spaces are available, but please do ask. For any other questions, feel free to email me: jyounistherapy@gmail.com