Dr Monika Wieliczko
Chartered Clinical Psychologist
I am a HCPC-registered and BPS Chartered Clinical Psychologist, with specialist postgraduate training in EMDR and relational psychotherapy models and more than 15 years of clinical experience across NHS and private practice settings.
I work with adults and couples experiencing trauma, relationship difficulties, grief and significant changes in their lives. I have a particular interest in complex and relational trauma — the ways our earlier experiences can continue to shape how we feel about ourselves, how we respond to other people and what happens in our closest relationships.
My work brings together Clinical Psychology, relational and psychodynamic psychotherapy, attachment theory and EMDR.
But more than any particular model of therapy, I believe good psychological therapy begins with understanding the person in front of me.
How I Think About Therapy
People rarely arrive in therapy as a collection of symptoms.
They arrive with histories, relationships, losses, ways of coping and ways of protecting themselves that have usually developed for very good reasons.
Something that causes difficulty now may once have been necessary.
Being fiercely independent may have developed because depending on other people wasn't safe.
Avoiding conflict may have helped preserve important relationships.
Taking care of everybody else may have been the way you maintained connection.
Keeping people at a distance may have protected you from being hurt.
Part of my work is helping people understand these patterns without reducing them to a diagnosis or treating them as something that simply needs to be removed.
I am interested in why a particular difficulty developed, what keeps it going and what becomes possible when it is no longer needed in quite the same way.
Understanding Isn't Always Enough
Many of the people I work with are thoughtful and psychologically minded.
They may already understand themselves very well.
They can recognise their patterns, explain where they came from and sometimes even know exactly what they should do differently.
But understanding a pattern and being able to respond differently when it is activated are not the same thing.
This is particularly true in our closest relationships.
We can know intellectually that our partner isn't abandoning us and still experience their withdrawal as unbearable. We can know that asking for help is reasonable and still find ourselves unable to do it. We can recognise that shutting down during conflict pushes somebody away while still feeling unable to remain present.
Therapy can help us move beyond simply explaining these responses towards experiencing ourselves, our emotions and our relationships differently.
A Relational Approach
My approach is fundamentally relational.
This means that I pay attention not only to what has happened to you, but to what you have learned about yourself and other people as a result.
Our earliest and most important relationships can shape what we expect from closeness, dependence, disagreement, vulnerability and loss.
These patterns can become particularly visible when relationships matter deeply to us.
The therapeutic relationship itself can therefore become an important part of the work.
Rather than therapy being something I simply do to you, we think together about what happens — both in your life outside the room and, when useful, within the relationship developing between us.
My style is active and collaborative. I won't simply sit silently while you try to work everything out yourself. I will ask questions, offer observations, make connections and sometimes challenge you when I think that may be useful.
Trauma and EMDR
Trauma has been a significant part of my clinical work.
I work with PTSD, complex trauma, developmental and relational trauma, as well as people whose current difficulties are connected to experiences they may never previously have thought of as traumatic.
I am trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) and integrate it into therapy where it is clinically appropriate.
I don't see EMDR as a stand-alone technique that should automatically be applied whenever somebody has experienced trauma.
For some people it becomes a central part of treatment. For others, the work needs to focus more broadly on relationships, attachment, emotional regulation and the ways they have learned to protect themselves.
My background as a Clinical Psychologist allows me to draw on different psychological approaches and develop the therapy around the individual rather than fitting the individual into one model.
Read about Trauma & EMDR Therapy →
Relationships and Couples
I also work extensively with relationships — both within individual psychotherapy and with couples.
Our intimate relationships have an extraordinary ability to activate the parts of us that feel most vulnerable.
Arguments that appear to be about everyday things can quickly become about whether we matter, whether we can depend on somebody, whether we are being controlled or whether the relationship itself is safe.
In couples therapy, I am interested in understanding the pattern between two people, rather than simply deciding which partner is right.
Helping couples recognise what happens underneath conflict can create opportunities for a different kind of conversation — and, where possible, for repair.
My Clinical Background
I completed my Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and have worked across a range of NHS and specialist psychological services as well as private practice.
My clinical training gave me experience across different areas of mental health and across the lifespan, while my subsequent work has increasingly focused on trauma, relationships, attachment, grief and major life transitions.
Alongside my clinical practice, I have been involved in teaching and training within Clinical Psychology and have worked with other professionals around psychological formulation and therapeutic practice.
My continuing professional development has included specialist training in EMDR and relational psychotherapy, alongside my broader training and experience as a Clinical Psychologist.
I am registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and hold Chartered status with the British Psychological Society (BPS).
Why I Value Psychological Therapy
After many years of doing this work, I don't think therapy is about becoming perfectly adjusted, never being triggered or learning how to eliminate every difficult feeling.
Life will still contain uncertainty, conflict, loss and experiences we would never have chosen.
What can change is how much freedom we have in the way we respond to them.
For me, good therapy creates more room between what has happened to us and what has to happen next.
Sometimes that means processing something from the past.
Sometimes it means recognising a relationship pattern while it is happening.
Sometimes it means learning to tolerate something we have spent years avoiding.
And sometimes it means making a choice that previously didn't feel available.
That is ultimately what I hope therapy can offer: not a different history, but greater choice in how you live with what has shaped you.
Working With Me
I offer psychological therapy to adults and couples in Weybridge, Surrey, South East London and online.
You do not need to know which type of therapy you need before contacting me. Our initial conversations are an opportunity to understand what has brought you to therapy and whether my approach is likely to be useful.
