In this short video, I explain why recovery begins with your own perception rather than with the other person, and how we rebuild it together by video.
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Online therapy after narcissistic abuse helps you recover from a relationship in which you were repeatedly belittled, controlled or told that what you saw and felt was wrong. That person may have been a partner, a parent, a manager or a close friend. You work with me alone, by video and in English, in 1-hour sessions with 50 minutes of therapy, wherever in the world you now live.
I help you understand what happened, quieten the voice that still corrects you and rebuild trust in your own judgement. This page belongs to my online trauma therapy, part of my broader online psychotherapy.
You can set up a free 30-minute call, book a first session, read my client policy or get in touch by message.
Online therapy after narcissistic abuse is for adults who spent months or years close to someone who undermined, controlled or confused them, and who now want their own mind back. You may have left already, or you may be finding the way out. You want a steady place, outside your local circle, to make sense of it.
Recovering from control touches many parts of life, and some situations need a different focus first. If one of these sounds closer to yours, the linked page will suit 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.
“Many of the people I meet by video after a controlling relationship arrive with a folder of evidence: screenshots, articles, lists of traits. I understand why, and I gently put the folder aside. The more energy goes into analysing the other person, the less is left for coming back to yourself. Underneath the research I hear one voice asking ‘Did I ever matter to them, even once?’ and another insisting ‘I just need to get through this on my own and never need anyone like that again.’ Both make sense. My strong view is that you will not heal by finally understanding them. You heal by trusting what you feel again, and by learning that closeness does not have to cost you yourself.”
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.
Arjun is 34, a data analyst from Pune who moved to Singapore for his partner’s career. Over 5 years she decided where they lived, whom he saw and what he wore to dinners, and she called him paranoid whenever he objected. He ended it 8 months ago. He still drafts replies to messages she has not sent, rehearses defences on his way to work and cannot choose a sofa without asking what she would say.
I would start with those imagined conversations and ask what Arjun is still trying to win in them. In a first video session he would probably see that the arguments are less about her than about his right to trust his own eyes, and that is where our work would begin.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have left, or nearly left, and still the relationship goes on running inside your head.
There is no correct moment and no required reason to seek help after a relationship like this. A feeling that you no longer trust yourself, or that someone else’s voice still speaks in your thoughts, is enough. You do not need to prove what happened, label the other person or reach a crisis before we meet. In 22 years of practice I have sat with many people recovering from control, and I know the quiet ways it lingers.
I will help you see what happened, what keeps its hold on you and what you need to reclaim. The 6 questions below may show you where you stand.
If you do, that doubt is worth taking seriously. You were told so often that you misheard or overreacted that your memory now feels unreliable. You reread old messages to check, ask friends what they saw and tire yourself out keeping score.
I would look at where the doubt is loudest and whose voice it sounds like. That shows us whether this is passing confusion or a habit of self-questioning that needs real attention. If this is familiar, book a session with me and we can begin sorting your memory from their version.
Both feelings can be true at once, because each serves a different need. The missing reaches for the good moments, the warmth that made the hard ones bearable. The refusal protects you from returning to harm. Many people swing between the two within an hour and feel crazy for it.
I do not treat the longing as weakness or the anger as the only healthy feeling. I help you see what each one protects, so your choices about contact become deliberate rather than driven by whichever feeling is louder that evening.
Living near someone whose mood could turn without warning teaches you to watch. Now a colleague’s short email or a friend’s pause on the phone can feel like the start of punishment. You apologise early, explain too much and cannot settle until you know you are forgiven.
Your wish for safety and clear signals is completely legitimate. What I help you change is an alarm that still behaves as if the old danger were in the room. We trace where it learned to fire, and you practise checking the present before you obey it.
Yes, this is common after control. You long for warmth and steadiness, and when someone offers it, your body treats it as a trap. You draw near, then cancel plans, pick at small faults or test whether they will turn.
I help you slow this sequence down to find the exact moment closeness starts to feel dangerous. Often it is when you sense you are being needed or watched. I have real compassion for the part of you that learned to guard the gate, and I will also help you notice when the guarding hurts someone who has done nothing wrong.
Some people come out of a controlling relationship by retreating. You keep conversations practical, say you are fine and fill your evenings with work. Being alone feels clean and safe, and other people’s needs feel like a demand you cannot afford.
My view is that this distance has done you a real service, and you need not apologise for it. I help you see what it is protecting now, so you can stay present a little longer without feeling swallowed. You learn to say you need space before the door closes completely.
After years of adjusting to someone else’s moods and rules, your own preferences can seem to have vanished. You may not know which music you like, which friends you miss or what you want from a weekend. That reflects how hard you had to adapt, not something missing in you.
I help you find out which beliefs about yourself came from them and which were yours all along. I will challenge you when you shrink yourself, but I will not hand you a new identity. The aim is a clearer sense of what matters to you and what kind of relationships fit you.
If these questions describe your days, a free call lets you talk first, and booking a session lets you start straight away.
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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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Understanding what happened helps, but the work also has to change how you choose, speak and trust from now on.
Working with me will help you understand what happened to you, notice the patterns it left behind and change how you live and relate today. Many people have read everything about controlling relationships. That knowledge is useful, yet reading alone rarely calms the flinch when your phone lights up.
In 22 years of practice I have found that this work needs an active therapist. I will guide you, tell you what I notice and question the stories that still keep you small. The 6 questions below describe what we work towards.
Related reading: Is my partner a narcissist, or am I too sensitive?, Is my partner gaslighting me, or am I misremembering? and Why do I keep going back when I know I should leave?.
I help you separate the core of what happened from the confusion that was built around it. The sleeplessness, the second-guessing and the shame are real, but they are often results rather than causes. Beneath them sit specific lessons the relationship taught you: that your feelings were too much, that peace depended on you.
I offer my reading of what happened, name what needs attention first and challenge explanations that keep you blaming yourself. When you feel ready, book a session with me and we can begin.
You can learn the early signals: a tight stomach when someone frowns, a rush to explain yourself, the urge to agree before you have thought. Seeing the first one gives you a moment to choose.
In our sessions we slow these moments down and look at what sets them off and what they once protected. Recognising them is not the end point. We practise a different response together, on screen and between sessions, until you can use it with a boss or a new partner without anyone guiding you.
Steadying yourself does not mean forcing calm or pretending it did not matter. It means staying present enough to notice that the voice is a memory and to decide how you respond to it.
I help you notice sooner when your body braces, and understand what it is bracing for. Often it is the tone that came before a cold week or a public humiliation. We find short practices that suit you, and I will ask you to use them daily between sessions, because the voice will not quieten on understanding alone.
A clear no starts with knowing what you feel and what you are willing to give. After control, that can seem impossible. You either stay silent, give in and resent it later, or arrive armoured with long arguments for something that needs one sentence.
I help you find words that are honest and in proportion, such as “That does not work for me.” I will challenge you when you erase yourself, and also when you expect others to guess your limits. We often rehearse a real message, perhaps to the person you left.
Decisions get clearer once you separate their remembered judgement, your fear of getting it wrong and your own actual wishes. For a long time every choice was checked against someone else’s reaction, so even small ones now feel risky.
I help you look at your options and what each would ask of you. You will hear my honest view, and I will say so when I see fear choosing for you, but the decision is yours. Often we start with something small, a weekend plan or a haircut, and build from there.
Change has to reach beyond our sessions: into how you answer messages, whom you let close and how you spend a free Saturday. You may need firmer boundaries, a new circle of friends or new rules about contact with the person you left.
Together we sort what must change from what can stay. Your loyalty, your empathy and your willingness to try are not the problem, even though someone exploited them. The aim is to keep those qualities while choosing far more carefully where they go.
You can also send me an email
You need no proof, no label for the other person and no tidy timeline. We start with how you feel now.
When you begin, I listen closely, help you name the central difficulty and give our work a clear direction. You will not be asked to defend your account or prove anything to me.
This is a focused strand of my online psychotherapy, structured individual work on your inner life and relationships. If you are now in a safe relationship and both of you want to work on the echoes together, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. When you expect a longer stretch, a therapy bundle gives you real savings and the steadiness of a set plan.
In the first session I ask what has brought you now, what is hardest at the moment, what you have tried and what you want to feel differently about. You can tell as much or as little of the story as you like.
Before we end, I share my first understanding and suggest a direction. You then decide whether my approach feels useful. If you want to speak with me before committing, book a free 30-minute call.
Individual work is right when the focus is your own recovery: your trust in yourself, your fear responses, your history and the way you relate now. For most people leaving a controlling relationship, working alone is not just acceptable but necessary, since the other person has no place in your sessions.
With me you get direction, continuity and honest challenge from week to week. If the relationship turns out to be one theme among many, online psychotherapy describes my structured individual work more widely.
Couples therapy is not the right setting while one partner controls or frightens the other, and I will say so plainly. It fits later, in a new and safe relationship, when the old fear keeps showing up between you and your partner and you both want to change the pattern.
In couples work I help you both see the cycle, take ownership of your part and build safer ways of relating. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing for that stage.
The pace depends on how much the relationship still grips you, how much room your life has and whether you are still in contact with the person.
I usually recommend weekly sessions at first, because steady contact helps rebuild the trust that was worn away. I will tell you honestly if gaps are too long, if a court date or a handover calls for closer support, and when we can safely space sessions out.
A bundle makes sense when you know the work will take several sessions and you want a commitment you made for yourself, without anyone else deciding. After control, that matters.
A bundle reduces what each session costs and gives you a plan agreed in advance. I will tell you honestly what scope seems likely. See therapy discounts and bundles and the cards further down for the options.
Therapy has done its job when you trust your own perception again, can hold boundaries without dread and no longer organise your days around the other person’s voice.
I review progress openly and will not encourage you to stay longer than you need. Sessions can space out, pause or end. If you come back later, perhaps when a new relationship stirs old fear, that is a fresh chapter rather than a sign the earlier work failed.
Wondering whether this page is the right door? Here is how it compares with the options people leaving a controlling relationship most often consider.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online therapy after narcissistic abuse (this page) | A relationship left you controlled, confused and no longer sure of your own judgement. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online trauma therapy | One overwhelming event, rather than a long relationship, still grips your body. | Carefully paced 1-hour video sessions |
| Online childhood trauma therapy | The controlling person was a parent, and the pattern goes back to your earliest years. | Weekly video sessions over several months |
| Online codependency and people pleasing therapy | Putting everyone else first is a lifelong habit, whoever you are with. | Weekly or fortnightly video sessions |
Online therapy after narcissistic abuse with me is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for adults recovering from a relationship marked by control, belittling or being told their perception was wrong. It focuses on your recovery: your trust in yourself, your fear responses and your relationships now.
I work in depth, with the whole person, including the earlier experiences that may have made the relationship feel familiar. It sits within my online trauma therapy.
Come when you still doubt your memory, fear other people’s reactions or feel the relationship replaying long after it ended. If part of you senses you have not come back to yourself, trust that.
From 22 years of practice, I look at how much the relationship still shapes your choices, your sleep and your trust in others. When it decides more than you do, it deserves proper attention.
Yes, usually. The replaying is an attempt to finally be heard and believed. When that need is met in therapy, the loop tends to loosen. I cannot promise how fast, and I do not offer quick fixes.
In my clinical experience, the replaying eases most once you no longer need the other person to admit anything. I would focus with you on what you are still trying to win, and on what you can grant yourself without their agreement.
No. I do not diagnose anyone, least of all someone I have never met. What I can do is take your experience seriously and help you understand what the relationship did to you.
A label can bring relief, and I understand the wish for one. In my view, recovery does not depend on it. It depends on trusting what you lived through, whatever the other person would be called.
Because the relationship often gave you real warmth alongside the harm, and the warmth came unpredictably. That pattern binds people tightly. Being drawn back is a sign of how strong the bond was, not of foolishness.
I help you see what the pull is reaching for, often a feeling of being chosen, and what it has cost you. Then we build other ways of meeting that need, so the pull loses its power over your choices.
We begin with your life today: how the relationship still shows up in your thoughts, body and choices, and what you hope will change. Before we finish, I share how I read your situation and where I would start.
There is nothing to prepare, and you do not need to bring messages or evidence. You can book your first session, or meet me briefly on a free 30-minute call.
Plan for a course of sessions over several months. A few sessions can steady you, but trust in yourself that was worn down over years usually needs steady rebuilding. If the relationship echoed earlier experiences, it can take longer.
Based on 22 years of practice, I prefer to agree a clear first period and review it honestly. Each review lets us choose together: carry on, slow down or close the work.
It can be, with some planning. Video lets you work with a therapist outside your local circle, so nobody you both know is involved. If you still live with the person, choose a time when they are out, or take the session from a parked car or a booked room.
You need headphones, a stable connection and a laptop or phone. Clear your browser history if that matters for your safety. The calendar shows every slot in your own time zone, and we can plan the practicalities on a free call.
This is individual psychotherapy, booked as 1-hour online sessions with 50 minutes of therapy. Current fees, listed in US dollars, are kept on my prices page.
If you expect a longer stretch of work, a therapy bundle saves you 10 per cent and gives you a set plan. Bundle options are listed on therapy discounts and bundles.
Book your first session directly, or ask for a free 30-minute call first. Every slot appears in your local time.
If nothing suits you, or the situation has just flared up, send me a message. I hold some room for acute cases, usually a time within days, as described under acute online psychotherapy. Pick your time, and we begin with you.
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!
