In this short video, I explain why anxiety tends to tighten when you battle it, and what we look for instead when we meet by video.
You can also send me an email
Online anxiety therapy helps you understand why your body and mind keep bracing for something to go wrong, and what you can change about it. We meet one to one by video, in English, in 1-hour sessions with 50 minutes of therapy, at a time that fits your time zone wherever you live.
I help you find out what your anxiety is guarding, where it took root and what feeds it now. This is the anxiety branch of my online psychotherapy. When one shape of anxiety stands out, there is more focused help for overthinking, intrusive thoughts, panic attacks and social anxiety.
You can book a free 30-minute call, choose a session time, look through my client policy or send me a message.
Online anxiety therapy is for English-speaking adults, anywhere in the world, whose worry, tension or dread has begun to decide how they live. You want to understand where it comes from, with a therapist you can reach by video wherever you are.
Some forms of anxiety need more focused help. If one of these lines fits you better, the linked page will serve you better.
You can also send me an email
These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“Over more than 15,000 clinical hours, I have watched capable people treat their anxiety as a fault to be removed, and I think that is the wrong way round. Anxiety is usually loyal. It learned its job early, often in a family where something had to be watched, and it keeps doing that job long after the danger has gone. Listen underneath and you hear it asking ‘Will they still want me if I get this wrong?’ or ‘What if I am left alone with this?’. Beside it stands a firmer voice: ‘I will deal with it myself, so nobody has to see.’ Often one person holds both and adds a third, ‘Stay with me, only do not come any nearer.’ Once we ask what the alarm is guarding, it rarely needs to be so loud.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Ethan is 41 and works as a structural engineer in Toronto, where he moved from Manchester 3 years ago. In private he checks his inbox before he is out of bed and rereads emails 4 times before sending them. His doctor found nothing wrong with the tightness in his chest. Because he cannot name a cause, he tells himself he has no real reason to ask for help.
I would not begin with the worry itself. I would begin by asking when Ethan first learned that staying alert kept things safe, and whose watchfulness his own resembles. In a first video session he would probably notice that the tightness rises whenever he fears letting someone down, and that the pattern is far older than his move abroad.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have done everything sensible to calm yourself, and still the worry returns as if you had done nothing at all.
There is no right moment and no correct reason to start therapy for anxiety. A sense that worry has taken more of your life than it deserves is enough. You do not need a diagnosis, a tidy account of the problem or a crisis before we meet. In 22 years of practice I have met anxiety in almost every shape, and I can tell when ordinary pressure has hardened into a pattern that needs attention.
I will help you find what happens when it rises, what keeps it in place and what has to change. Let these 6 questions help you decide whether to get in touch.
If it is, take that tiredness seriously. You scan the day for trouble, rehearse replies to questions nobody has asked and hold your shoulders ready for a blow that never lands. By evening you are spent, and invitations start to feel like a cost.
I would look at when this began and whether it comes and goes with certain situations or never leaves. That tells us whether this is passing strain or a pattern that will not loosen on its own. If this sounds familiar, book a session with me and we can start to map it.
Both can be true at once, because each looks after a different need. The cautious part keeps you from risk: the job abroad you never apply for, the honest talk you keep postponing. Another part is tired of a shrinking world.
I do not treat caution as the problem and boldness as the answer. In the psychosynthesis tradition I trained in, we meet these inner figures as parts of you, each with something worth hearing. I help you see what each one protects, so your choices become deliberate. Your caution keeps a voice, just not the only vote.
A slow reply or a change in someone’s voice can feel like proof that something is wrong. You ask, you check, you read between the lines, and the relief lasts minutes.
Your wish for closeness and clarity is legitimate, and I will not make you feel foolish for it. What I help you change is the alarm that goes off before there is any evidence. We look at what the reassurance is trying to soothe, often an old fear of being left or of not counting, and you practise asking directly for what you need.
Yes, and it puzzles you as much as it puzzles them. When the worry climbs, you call a friend or lean on your partner, then feel hemmed in the moment they try to help. Contact feels essential and too much at once, and guilt joins the worry.
In our sessions I slow this cycle down, so we can catch the moment the wish for comfort turns into a wish to escape. There is usually a precise trigger, such as feeling observed or responsible for someone else’s mood. I have real compassion for these protective moves, and I will also ask you to own the ones that hurt people you love.
Plenty of anxious people seem calm because they learned long ago to withdraw. When feelings run high or someone needs a lot from you, you turn practical, shrink the problem or vanish into work or a screen. The price is that the anxiety works on out of sight.
My view is that distance often does an important job, and needing it is nothing to be ashamed of. I help you see what it shields you from, so you can stay present a little longer without feeling swamped. You learn to say “I need an evening to myself” before the retreat hardens into a wall.
After years of living around anxiety, it is hard to see where it stops and you start. You may call yourself a worrier or a planner, when these are really the ways you learned to cope. Years of fitting in with other people’s hopes, or with a new country’s unwritten rules, can leave you unsure what you want. That shows how hard you have been working, not that you are damaged.
I help you sort out which habits belong to the anxiety and which are truly yours, including what you inherited from your family. I will challenge you when I see you making yourself small, but I will not hand you a new identity. The goal is a clearer sense of who you are and what kind of life fits you.
If you saw yourself in these questions, book a free call to talk it over, or choose a session time if you already know you want to begin.
You can also send me an email
Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
You do not need to explain your whole story in your first message.
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Knowing why you worry is useful, but the work also has to change how you sleep, speak, choose and rest.
Working on your anxiety with me will help you see what happens when it takes hold, recognise the patterns that keep it alive and make changes you can feel in an ordinary week. Yet knowing why you worry, without changing how you respond, seldom brings much relief.
In 22 years of practice, I have found that the work moves when I take an active part. I guide you, say what I notice and push back when an explanation keeps you stuck. The 6 questions below describe what we work towards.
For men: online performance anxiety therapy. Related reading: Why can’t I switch off from worrying about work?, Why am I calm all day and anxious at bedtime? and Why am I so anxious now that I’ve actually moved?.
I help you separate the heart of the problem from everything that has grown up around it. The racing pulse and the broken nights are real, yet they are often results rather than causes. Below them sit particular feelings and protective habits: a dread of failing, a rule that everyone must be kept happy, a grief that was never allowed.
I tell you what I think is happening, what needs attention first and which explanations are holding you back. Whenever it feels right, book a session with me and we begin tracing it.
Yes, by learning its early signals. There is usually a chain: a tight throat, a familiar thought, shallower breathing, an urge to check your phone. Once you see the first link, you gain a moment in which another choice becomes possible.
In our sessions I help you slow that chain down and study what sets it off and what it protects you from. Seeing it is not enough. We practise a different response, on screen and between sessions, until you can use it on a normal working morning with nobody coaching you.
Settling does not mean pushing the feeling down or pretending to be fine. It means staying present enough to understand what is happening and choose how you respond. Some anxiety carries a message worth hearing. Some is an old alarm reacting to a danger that passed long ago.
I help you notice the rise sooner and understand what your nervous system is reacting to, often something your body remembers better than your mind. This takes a few minutes of practice every day between our sessions.
Speaking clearly begins with knowing what you feel, what you need and what is yours to carry. You keep quiet to dodge conflict, over-explain so nobody misreads you, or say sorry before you have made your point. The unspoken needs turn into resentment, and the resentment feeds the worry.
Together we look for words that are honest, specific and sized to the moment. I will challenge you when you silence yourself, and also when you hand other people the job of keeping your anxiety quiet. We often rehearse a real conversation, perhaps with a parent in another time zone.
Choices become clearer once you separate fear, duty and other people’s expectations from what you actually know and want. Anxiety treats every decision as permanent and every risk as certain, so you wait for a certainty that never comes while the delay decides for you.
I help you look honestly at your options and what each would ask of you. You get my honest opinion, and I will say so when I see you dodging the choice, but the choice stays yours. If your mind loops endlessly, online overthinking therapy goes further into that pattern.
Change has to reach past our sessions, into your Monday morning, your visits home and your thoughts in the small hours. You may need firmer limits at work, a different rhythm to your week, more rest, or relationships in which you are not the one holding everything together.
I help you decide what needs to change and what can stay. Some caution, sensitivity and care are part of who you are, and they are not the problem. The aim is a life in which your choices answer to your values instead of to your alarm.
You can also send me an email
You do not need a diagnosis, a history in order or the right words. We start with what is happening now and what you want to change.
When you begin, I listen closely, help you name the central difficulty and give our work a clear direction from the first session. We start where you are.
Online anxiety therapy is one focused strand of my online psychotherapy, structured individual work on your inner life and your relationships. If your anxiety turns out to live mainly between you and your partner, and your partner is willing, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. When you already know the work will take a while, a therapy bundle gives you real savings and the steadiness of a plan agreed at the start.
In the first session I ask what has brought you to therapy now, how your anxiety shows itself, what you have tried and what you would like to be different. The full life story can wait.
Before we finish, I share my first understanding and suggest a direction. Then you decide whether my way of working feels useful. If you would like to talk before committing, book a free 30-minute call first.
Individual work is right when the anxiety lives mainly in you: in your body, your thoughts, your history and the way you move through work and relationships. We can explore your relationships in depth without anyone else joining the call.
In individual sessions I give you direction, continuity and honest challenge from week to week. If you are unsure whether to focus on anxiety or on your life more widely, online psychotherapy describes my structured individual work as a whole.
Couples therapy fits better when the relationship itself needs sustained attention. If your anxiety rises mostly around your partner, if the same argument keeps returning, if trust has been broken, or if one of you reaches out while the other pulls away, working together usually helps more.
In couples work I help you both see the cycle between you, own your part in it and build safer ways of being together. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing, and some people work on their anxiety alone first and turn to couples sessions later.
The right pace depends on how strong the anxiety is, how much room your life has right now and how much continuity the work needs.
I usually suggest we begin with a session every week or every fortnight. I will tell you honestly if the gaps are too long, or if we can safely meet less often. Several sessions can also be placed back-to-back over a few days, which suits people who travel or work in rotations.
A bundle makes sense when you already know the work will take several sessions and you would rather have continuity than decide after each one whether to go on. Anxiety loves an escape route. A planned course removes that question.
A bundle lowers what each session costs and gives you the security of a plan agreed in advance. See therapy discounts and bundles and the cards further down this page.
Therapy has done its job when you have more ownership, clarity and choice, and the anxiety has shifted enough for you to carry on without the same support. It may still visit, but it no longer runs your days.
I review progress with you openly and do not encourage therapy without an end. Sessions can thin out, pause or stop once the work has done its job. Returning one day with a fresh difficulty is not a sign that what we did before was wasted. Life simply moved on.
Not sure this is where to begin? Here is how online anxiety therapy sits beside the options people with anxiety most often weigh up.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online anxiety therapy (this page) | Worry, tension or dread has become a steady part of your days. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online psychotherapy | You want to look at your life broadly, with anxiety as one theme among several. | 1-hour video sessions at a pace you choose |
| Online stress therapy | Demands at work or home have outgrown your capacity, and exhaustion is the main problem. | A focused course of 1-hour video sessions |
| Online panic attack therapy | Sudden waves of panic are what you most want help with. | Video sessions close together at first |
Online anxiety therapy with me is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for adults whose worry, tension or fear has begun to shape their lives. Rather than only managing symptoms, it helps you understand what your anxiety protects, where it comes from and what keeps it going.
I work in depth, with the whole person rather than the symptom: your feelings, your body, your relationships and what you inherited from your family. It is a main branch of my online psychotherapy.
Come when anxiety is costing you sleep, energy, relationships or choices, or when your world is shrinking to avoid it. If part of you suspects things are not right, trust that.
I look at how long the anxiety has been with you, whether it is spreading and what you have given up because of it. If it keeps returning however hard you try, it deserves proper attention.
Yes, often it can. Lifelong anxiety is usually woven into how you learned to cope as a child, which means it can be understood and loosened as an adult. I cannot promise how much will change, and I do not offer quick fixes.
In my clinical experience, people who have always been anxious often discover that the anxiety once made complete sense. It kept them watchful in an unpredictable home, or well behaved in a demanding one. Together we look at what it guarded back then, and whether it still needs to stand guard today.
If you are asking, it is worth taking seriously. Many people wait for years because they are still working, still functioning and still turning up for everyone else.
I do not measure whether you are anxious enough. I look at what the anxiety is doing to your life and what you would like to be different. After the first session you will know what I see and what I would suggest.
Both are attempts to feel safe. Some people reach out and need to hear that all is well. Others go quiet, keep busy and manage alone. It is how you learned to handle fear, not a flaw in your character.
I help you see which way you move under pressure, what each move is trying to achieve and what it costs the people close to you. Then we build steadier options: asking clearly for support and taking space without vanishing.
We start with the present. I ask how your anxiety shows up in your body, thoughts and behaviour, when it is at its worst and what you hope will change. By the end you will have my first reading and a suggested direction.
There is nothing to prepare, and no perfect way to describe it. Many people feel nervous about the session itself, and we can begin exactly there. Book your first session or start with a free 30-minute call.
Plan for a course of sessions over a few months rather than a single conversation. That is often enough to understand your pattern and begin changing it. Anxiety that has been with you for many years, or that is bound up with earlier experiences, usually needs longer.
In 22 years of practice I have seen that a clear first stretch, reviewed honestly, works far better than drifting. At each review we choose together whether to carry on, meet less often or end.
For most people, yes. Video lets you work from a place where you already feel safe, which matters when anxiety makes leaving home hard. It also keeps your therapy going if you move country or travel for work.
You need a private room, headphones, a stable connection and a laptop or tablet. If you cannot be overheard at home, a parked car or a booked meeting room works better than a café. The booking calendar shows every time in your own time zone, and we can settle any doubts on a free call.
Individual psychotherapy is booked as 1-hour online sessions with 50 minutes of therapy. Current fees, in US dollars, are on my prices page.
When you know the work will take a while, a therapy bundle saves you 10 per cent on each session and gives you a structured plan. The options are set out on therapy discounts and bundles.
Book your first session directly, or request a free 30-minute call if you would like to talk first. The calendar shows times in your own local time zone.
If no time suits you, or your situation feels acute, write to me directly. I hold some room for acute cases, usually a time within days, and acute online psychotherapy describes that help. Choose a time, and we will begin from wherever you are.
You can also send me an email
I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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P.S. I’ll call you in a bit!
