Dr Brianna Oaten

About Me

I am a Bristol-based, BPS Chartered and HCPC Registered Counselling Psychologist with over ten years of experience providing psychological therapies in the NHS.

I originally trained as a couple and family therapist in the United States before moving to the United Kingdom and qualifying as a Counselling Psychologist.

My clinical passion is maternal mental health (also called perinatal mental health). I specialised in maternal mental health early in my career, and I have significant specialist training and experience in supporting parents with their mental health and emotional wellbeing throughout their fertility journey, pregnancy, birth, and the postnatal period.

My style as a therapist is to be very open and authentic, bringing loads of warmth and the occasional touch of humour to sessions. I balance providing compassion and validation with gentle challenge and accountability.

In addition to maternal mental health, I am skilled and experienced in supporting clients with a wide range of goals. I can help you with:

• Anxiety and depression

• OCD

• Trauma

• Low self-esteem

• Improving relationships

• Couple Therapy

• Increasing resilience

• Adjusting to life transitions

• Recognising and breaking unhelpful patterns

• Learning to better understand and manage difficult emotions (emotion regulation)

Maternal Mental Health

I offer specialist support with difficulties during pregnancy and following birth, including anxiety, depression, OCD, birth anxiety, birth trauma, the transition to parenthood & emotion regulation.

EMDR

I offer Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy - an evidence-based approach for processing trauma.

Mental Health & Emotional Wellbeing

I support adults and young adults with a wide range of mental health and wellbeing goals - email me to arrange a free 15-minute consultation to explore how we might work together.

How can I help?

I offer a warm, compassionate, and collaborative approach, supporting you to develop a clear understanding of your difficulties and to create meaningful change.

I subscribe to the biopsychosocial model of mental health - the idea that mental health difficulties can best be understood as occurring when a 'perfect storm' of biological, psychological, and social factors are present for any one person at any one time.

In our work together, we will balance spending time understanding and exploring your past experiences with working in the 'here and now', learning skills and techniques. This will allow us to make sense of the history and context of your current difficulties, and then move from insight to action, helping you to take tangible steps towards the life you want to live.

I have trained in a range of models of therapy (see the 'Qualifications' tab for details), all of which inform my work, however, my current practice is primarily rooted in 'third wave' therapeutic approaches, such as ACT and CFT, as well as EMDR for trauma.

Sessions are offered online-only, via Zoom.

My Approach