Boundaries, Belonging and Self‑Trust Therapy
Online across the UK and in person in London
Understand your needs. Strengthen your boundaries. Belong without abandoning yourself.
You may be deeply attuned to what other people need, yet struggle to recognise or communicate your own needs. Perhaps you say yes when something inside you is saying no, feel responsible for other people’s feelings, or worry that setting a boundary will make you selfish, difficult or unlovable.
Over time, continually adapting yourself to preserve relationships can leave you feeling emotionally exhausted, resentful or disconnected from who you are.
Therapy can help you understand these patterns, rebuild trust in your own perceptions and develop boundaries that protect both your wellbeing and your capacity for genuine connection.
Book a free 15‑minute introductory call
A brief, no‑pressure conversation to explore what brings you to therapy and whether working together feels right.
You might be in the right place if…
You find it difficult to say no without guilt or anxiety.
You agree to things and later feel exhausted, resentful or overwhelmed.
You over‑explain your decisions because stating what you need does not feel sufficient.
You worry that expressing disappointment or anger will damage your relationships.
You feel responsible for managing other people’s moods, needs or reactions.
You frequently question whether you are being unreasonable or “too sensitive”.
You can sense that something feels wrong but struggle to trust your judgement.
You adapt yourself to fit different relationships, families or cultural spaces and fear rejection or disapproval when you become more visible.
You are unsure who you are outside the roles of helper, carer, peacemaker or “strong one”.
You long to feel that you belong without having to hide or minimise parts of yourself.
Boundaries are more than learning to say no
Boundaries are often described as communication techniques: saying no, being assertive or limiting contact. These skills can be valuable, but difficulties with boundaries usually have deeper emotional and relational roots.
You may have learnt that love, approval or safety depended on being accommodating. Perhaps you were praised for being mature, undemanding, helpful or strong. You may have become highly skilled at anticipating other people’s needs while losing contact with your own limits.
In adulthood, your mind may understand that you are allowed to set boundaries, while your body responds as though doing so is dangerous. You might experience guilt, panic, freezing, appeasing or an urgent need to explain yourself.
These responses are not evidence that you are incapable of having boundaries. They are protective patterns formed when maintaining connection felt more important than expressing your full self.
When belonging has required self‑abandonment
The need to belong is deeply human. We are shaped through family, relationships, culture, community and the many places in which we hope to be recognised.
For some people, belonging has come with conditions. You may have felt that you needed to be quieter, easier, more successful, less emotional or more useful in order to remain connected. You may move between different cultural or relational worlds, carefully adjusting yourself while wondering where you are able to exist without explanation.
Cultural expectations, family loyalty, racism, migration, gendered roles and intergenerational experiences can all influence how boundaries are understood. Advice that simply tells you to “put yourself first” or cut people off may feel too individualistic and disconnected from the relationships and values that matter to you.
Therapy does not have to ask you to reject care, interdependence or cultural responsibility. Instead, we can explore the difference between care that is freely chosen and responsibility that is driven by fear, guilt or obligation.
Healthy boundaries are not rigid walls. They allow you to remain connected to others without repeatedly leaving yourself behind.
Rebuilding self‑trust
Self‑trust can become fragile when your feelings, needs or perceptions have been repeatedly dismissed, criticised or contradicted. You may have learnt to look outside yourself for confirmation before believing what you sense.
Sometimes the body recognises a boundary before the conscious mind does. Tension, fatigue, irritability, numbness or the urge to withdraw may be signalling that something needs attention. When these signals have been ignored for a long time, it can become difficult to distinguish intuition from fear or a genuine limit from a protective reaction.
Rebuilding self‑trust is not about becoming certain all the time. It is about developing a more compassionate and reliable relationship with yourself – one in which your feelings can be listened to, your needs considered and your internal signals taken seriously.
How therapy can support you
Therapy may help you to:
Understand how your early relationships shaped your experience of boundaries.
Notice your needs and limits before you reach exhaustion or resentment.
Recognise patterns of people‑pleasing, over‑functioning or self‑silencing.
Explore the fear, guilt or grief that can arise when you begin doing things differently.
Distinguish genuine responsibility from responsibility you have been conditioned to carry.
Develop more flexible and sustainable boundaries.
Communicate your needs without feeling compelled to justify your existence.
Rebuild trust in your feelings, perceptions and decisions.
Explore identity, culture and belonging without reducing yourself to one story.
Build relationships in which care, difference and mutuality can coexist.
Reconnect with the person beneath the roles you have learnt to perform.
The aim is not to make you harder, more detached or less caring. It is to help you remain compassionate and connected without sacrificing your wellbeing or sense of self.
How I work
I offer integrative, transpersonal, trauma‑informed and culturally sensitive psychotherapy. Our work may explore present‑day relationships, formative experiences, attachment patterns and the ways emotional stress is held within the body.
We may pay attention to what happens when you imagine disappointing someone, take up more space or listen to an internal no. Rather than forcing change, we work carefully with the parts of you that learnt adaptation, appeasement or self‑silencing as ways of maintaining safety and connection.
Where meaningful to you, our work can also include identity, mixed heritage, spirituality, ancestry, migration, family expectations and experiences of belonging or exclusion. These dimensions are welcomed but never assumed or imposed.
Therapy offers an opportunity to practise a different kind of relationship: one in which your experience can be explored without needing to perform, please or make yourself smaller.
About me
I’m Jamila Andersson, a UKCP‑registered integrative transpersonal psychotherapist and the founder of Remember Who We Are Therapy.
I work with adults experiencing anxiety, low mood, relationship difficulties, people‑pleasing, chronic illness or pain, grief, life transitions and questions of identity, meaning and belonging.
My approach is warm, reflective and collaborative. I will not tell you who to become or make decisions on your behalf. Instead, I will support you in understanding your inner world, recognising what belongs to you and developing choices that feel more conscious and grounded.
Sessions and fees
Sessions are 50 minutes and usually take place weekly at a regular agreed time.
Online psychotherapy: £90 per session, available across the UK.
In‑person psychotherapy: £100 per session in London.
Working days: Tuesday to Friday.
Begin with an introductory call
If you are considering weekly psychotherapy, you can book a free 15‑minute introductory call. We can briefly discuss what is bringing you to therapy, what you are looking for and whether my approach and current availability are a suitable fit.
Book a free 15‑minute introductory call
If your difficulties are connected specifically to gaslighting, manipulation or chronic emotional invalidation within a relationship, you may also wish to read about Narcissistic Abuse Therapy.