Kate Oliver-Smith, NCPS

Kate Oliver-Smith is a psychotherapeutic counsellor with 13 years' experience. She draws on a background in Human Resources and counselling to help people set clear, realistic goals and work towards them. She is warm, down to earth and approachable in sessions and aims to make the process straightforward and practical.

Her early work in HR involved mediation, coaching and helping people with workplace issues. That time shaped how she listens and asks questions now in therapy. She then trained in psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and person-centred therapy, and she uses those ways of working together in sessions.

In practice she focuses on everyday struggles such as stress, anxiety and depression. She also helps people dealing with relationships, grief, addictions and issues around intimacy and self-esteem. Other concerns she supports include sleeping problems, parenting strain, career worries and coping with life changes.

Kate also has experience with more specific difficulties such as attachment and abandonment issues, adoption and foster care, chronic illness or pain, codependency, and domestic violence. She blends practical tools with listening to build a plan that fits each person’s situation.

Sessions are described as collaborative and tailored. She combines empathic listening with techniques from several approaches so people can try what helps most and adjust as they go.

Approaches that guide online work

Kate uses client-centred ways of working that focus on listening and building a supportive relationship. This approach helps when someone needs to feel heard, to make sense of emotions, and to find their own next steps.

She also uses cognitive behavioural therapy, which looks at links between thoughts, feelings and actions. CBT is useful for problems like anxiety, low mood and stress because it offers concrete strategies to try between sessions.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with each person about goals and preferences and then try methods that fit their needs. That means sessions can be adjusted as progress is made, combining listening, practical exercises and occasional reflection on deeper patterns.

If you are considering online sessions, please confirm which formats are available before booking because the biography does not list specific options. Online work can make it easier to fit therapy around work, caring duties or travel, and it can allow shorter check-ins when time is limited. Registered or accredited professionals can adapt tools and exercises so they work well in remote sessions.