Psychotherapy · Neurofeedback · Organisational Wellbeing

Exploring what it feels like to be you

Therapy, in its best form, should be a brief and light-hearted break to your day; a source of a little quiet time, or a candle to shed light on a dark corner of your mind and show you what some part of you already knows.

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Anjali Singh-Mitter, psychotherapist and neurofeedback practitioner.

We tend to think of therapy as somewhere we go when something has gone wrong. Sometimes, of course, that is exactly what brings us there. Life can become painful or overwhelming; relationships change, anxiety takes up too much space, old patterns begin to feel impossible to ignore, or we simply find ourselves somewhere we hadn’t expected to be.

Therapy can be more expansive than that. It can be a place in which to become curious about yourself — about the patterns you have accumulated, the things you believe, the ways in which you have learned to protect yourself, and the parts of you that perhaps haven’t had much room to speak.

Here, there isn’t an emphasis on pathology or diagnosis, but rather on the journey towards a greater sense of wholeness.

A way of working

A Different Way of Thinking About Therapy

We all teeter on the edge of fear when it comes to some of the bigger questions: What does it feel like to be me? Why is this happening to me? What do I actually want?

Sometimes it is that fear, rather than an illness or diagnosis, that brings us to therapy in the first place.

My approach brings together the scientific traditions of Western psychology with philosophical concepts found in the East. This way of thinking about therapy has also been shaped by my father, Shomit Mitter, whose own work explored the meeting point between Eastern philosophy and Western therapeutic practice, and from whom I inherited an early curiosity about what might be possible when we allow those traditions to speak to one another. I believe deeply in the importance of evidence, research and our growing understanding of the brain; but I also think there is more to our existence than what we can see, measure or prove, and somehow we need to leave room for this in the care we seek out for ourselves.

Human beings have been trying to understand their inner worlds for thousands of years. We have done it through science and medicine, but also through philosophy, stories, relationships, spirituality, art and the endless conversations we have with ourselves and one another. Therapy, to me, belongs somewhere within that much larger conversation.

It doesn’t always need to begin with the assumption that something has gone wrong. It can also be a place for curiosity; somewhere to understand yourself more deeply, loosen patterns that no longer serve you, and perhaps become a little clearer about where you would actually like to go next.

If we want to be able to truly shift our perception, it’s important to make it a desirable choice for the frightened mind. Desirable doesn’t just mean to play into what one could call the ego-driven want for a solution to our “issues”. Desirable, to the psyche, means safe. Change – therapy – needs to feel safe, even perhaps enjoyable, and in the best cases, playful. Enticing the frightened mind with the prospect of gentle joy is going to gain far greater access to the inner world than a blundering, loud, inconsiderately militant need for the answer to our perceived problems. We are not “broken”, we do not need “fixing”; there is no “problem” to be “solved”. We are made up of many characters, and these characters are experiencing our lives. Sometimes, it hurts, and we get stuck. You don’t have to punish those inner characters – and yourself – for getting stuck, you just need a map, and a guide, whilst you get yourself from where you are to where you would like to be.

Private Practice

People come to therapy for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes there is something very clear that needs attention: anxiety, grief, a difficult relationship, a period of change, an experience that continues to make itself felt long after it has passed. At other times, life may look perfectly functional from the outside while something quietly feels wrong within it, and sometimes there is no crisis at all — simply a desire to understand yourself better and live with a little more freedom inside your own mind.

Neurofeedback

There are times when words are enormously useful, and there are times when another route into the problem can help. Neurofeedback is a computer-assisted form of behavioural therapy which provides the brain with information about its own activity in real time. For some people it forms part of a wider therapeutic process; for others, neurofeedback itself is the principal intervention. Sessions take place in person in Kensington, London.

Organisations & Speaking

The conversation about mental health at work has become considerably louder over the last few years. I'm interested in making it considerably more intelligent. My work with organisations sits at the intersection of mental health, leadership, behaviour and performance, through talks, workshops, leadership sessions, manager training and tailored programmes in the UK and internationally.

Integrated practice

No single modality tells the whole story.

Talking therapy is the thread that runs through my practice. It gives us somewhere to begin: a place in which experience can be put into words, examined from different angles and perhaps understood in ways that weren’t previously available to us.

I don’t believe that talking — on its own, and in the same way for every person — is always enough. I have long championed the need for multimodal approaches in therapy, quite simply because the issues we face are complex and need to be seen and held through more than one medium.

My work therefore brings talking therapies together with parts work, hypnotherapy, mindfulness and neurofeedback, moving between them naturally according to what is useful in the work. These aren’t separate treatments sitting in different boxes; they are different ways of approaching the same human system.

Sometimes we need to understand something intellectually. Sometimes we need to become aware of the way it is held in the body or nervous system. Sometimes there is a frightened or protective part of us that doesn’t respond particularly well to logic, however persuasive we think we are being. Sometimes the brain itself benefits from feedback that doesn’t depend upon language at all.

Nothing is “one size fits all”. Therapy is ultimately a unique dialogue with yourself. I’m here to help you find your voice for that dialogue.

Children & Parents

A child is never the only person in the room.

Even when they are.

Children exist within families, schools, friendships and rapidly changing stages of development. What we see as a symptom or behaviour rarely exists entirely on its own, and I think it is important that the work reflects that wider picture.

Neurofeedback can be a particularly useful tool in paediatric work, especially where regulation is difficult, because it does not rely on a child having the language or insight to explain everything that is happening internally, but I also encourage parents to become part of the wider process.

This isn’t about locating blame within a family. Quite the opposite. It is about becoming curious about the whole system around a child and considering what might make life feel easier — for them, and often for everybody else too.

Sometimes the most useful intervention is work with the child. Sometimes there is useful work for the adults around them. Often, it is some combination of the two.

More on neurofeedback for children & parents

About

The empirical is a fantastic roadmap. It isn’t the entire landscape.

Traditional psychology is still predominantly studied as a scientific discipline, encompassing our understanding of the brain, behaviour, development, emotion and the biological processes that accompany what we call mental health. That knowledge matters enormously to me, but I don’t think it can possibly account for all of the complexities that arise when two human beings sit in a room together and begin talking about a life.

If we broaden what we are looking at, and address mental health as a fundamental part of being human rather than something that belongs only to those who are unwell, we open up a dialogue that I believe is far more interesting — and often far more useful.

Anjali Singh-Mitter

BA (Hons) · Dip. Hyp. · MSc

Psychotherapist & Neurofeedback Practitioner

GHR & CNHC Registered

The systems aren't conscious. We are.

There are enormous holes in many of the systems in which we live and work, but organisations themselves don’t think, feel, lead, communicate or change. People do.

If we want healthier organisations, we have to become more interested in the human beings at their centre. My organisational work takes many of the questions that arise in the consulting room and considers what they look like when they are played out across teams, leadership structures and working cultures.

What happens to us under pressure? How do we communicate when we feel threatened? Why do intelligent people repeat patterns they know are unhelpful? What does good leadership require psychologically, as well as strategically, and what actually allows human beings to perform well without gradually exhausting themselves in the process?

Organisations & Speaking

Insights

Simple thoughts on being human.

Reflections on the inner lives we lead and the outer worlds we create — through therapy, psychology, philosophy, relationships, work, and the stories we tell ourselves along the way.

Coming soonTherapy & Psychology

What we mean when we talk about wholeness

Coming soonLeadership & Work

The regulated leader

Coming soonLife & Philosophy

On curiosity as a way of living

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Start a conversation.

Whether you're considering therapy for yourself, looking for support for your child, curious about neurofeedback, or interested in a talk, workshop or programme for your organisation, you don't need to know exactly what you need before getting in touch. The first step is simply a conversation.

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Foundation

The Khilari Foundation

The Khilari Foundation is an initiative founded alongside the therapy practice that aims to see a systemic change in the way mental health is recognised and treated. The Foundation believes in a holistic understanding of mental health, providing multimodal psychoeducation to clients and practitioners of any kind. All workshops are in keeping with the teaching of the Foundation, based on systems rooted in the intersection between evidence-based psychological intervention and the philosophical questions that drive us towards that knowledge.

A percentage per year of all fees paid to the practice are donated to establishments across the globe that work with the Foundation towards a vision of a better understanding and practice of mental health care. Businesses, hospitals and schools are invited to partner with the Foundation for ongoing support and feedback in the care of their staff, patients and students. The Foundation also serves as a cross-disciplinary educational body for practitioners to develop their understanding of multimodal intervention. For more information, please get in touch.