In this short video, I explain how emotion-focused work by video helps you understand a feeling that keeps overwhelming you, or one you cannot reach at all.
You can also send me an email
EFT online psychotherapy helps you understand the emotions that drive your reactions, find the need underneath them and respond in a way that fits the life you have now. EFT here means emotion-focused therapy for one person. Our sessions are one to one on video, in English, and each 1-hour booking holds 50 minutes of emotion-focused work, scheduled at a time that suits your part of the world.
I help you slow a feeling down, tell the first, core emotion apart from the reactions that cover it, and work with it rather than being run by it or cut off from it. This is the emotion-focused branch of my online psychotherapy. When feelings have just become unmanageable, there is acute EFT online psychotherapy, and for a planned block of sessions close together there is back-to-back EFT online psychotherapy.
To take the next step, talk with me on a free 30-minute call, reserve your first emotion-focused session, look over the client policy or send me a note.
EFT online psychotherapy is for English-speaking adults, wherever they live, whose feelings have become too strong, too confusing or too far away to work with. You want to understand what is going on inside you, with a therapist you meet by video, and to respond to it with more choice.
Some situations call for a different kind of help. If one of these fits you better, 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.
“In more than 20 years of sitting with people, I have come to disagree with the idea that strong feelings are the problem. Usually the problem is the feeling that never got finished. Anger covers a hurt nobody comforted. Numbness sits on top of a fear that had nowhere to go. Listen underneath and one part of you is asking ‘Does anyone notice how much this hurts?’, while another says ‘I can handle this myself, just give me room.’ Often a third part asks for both at once: ‘Stay near me, but do not look too closely.’ When we stay with the core feeling long enough for it to be heard, it tends to change on its own terms. Managing it from the outside rarely does that.”
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.
Ayumi is 36, grew up in Osaka and now works as a product designer in Melbourne. She is good at her job and calm in meetings. At home she snaps at her partner over small things, then goes silent for hours. When her mother calls, she feels nothing at all, and that frightens her more than the snapping. She has read about emotions and can name them in theory. In practice, she cannot tell what she feels until it has already happened.
I would start with one recent evening and slow it down to the moment just before the snap. In a first video session Ayumi would likely find a flash of hurt there, so quick she has never caught it, and a strong rule that hurt must not show.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have tried to think your way out of what you feel, and the feeling keeps coming back with the same force.
There is no right moment and no qualifying reason for starting emotion-focused therapy. If your feelings swamp you, confuse you or seem to have gone missing, that is reason enough. You do not need a diagnosis, a clear story or a crisis first. In 22 years of practice I have learned to tell a passing emotional storm from a pattern that keeps repeating, and the second deserves real attention.
In sessions, I usually begin by staying close to what you feel right now, in your body and in your words, and helping you find what keeps that feeling stuck. Use the 6 questions below to see whether your feelings are asking for this kind of help.
If they are, take it seriously. A tense email can colour a whole afternoon. You lie awake rehearsing what you should have said, or you avoid a friend because you cannot face what seeing them stirs up. From the outside you manage well, while inside you spend most of your energy holding things down.
I would look at which feeling takes over, what sets it off and how long it lasts. That tells us whether this is a hard season or an emotional groove you keep falling into. If you recognise the groove, book a session with me and we can begin to follow it.
These 2 wishes sit side by side in you, since each one is guarding its own need. One part longs to feel alive, to cry properly, to be moved again. Another part remembers a time when feeling things got you hurt or left alone, and it keeps the lid on tight.
I do not side with either part. Emotion-focused work treats the protector with respect, because it once did an important job. I help you understand what each side is guarding, so you can open up at a pace your system accepts. Nothing is forced, and nothing is left closed out of fear alone.
A shorter reply than usual, a partner who seems distant, a friend who has not messaged back: suddenly you feel unsafe and cannot settle. You reread the conversation, ask whether everything is fine, and the relief lasts until the next small change.
Your need to feel close and sure of others is real, and I will not treat it as weakness. What I help you reach is the older fear under the alarm, often a fear of not mattering or of being dropped. Once that fear is felt and understood, you can ask for what you need in plain words, instead of letting panic do the asking.
Many people know this cycle and are baffled by it. You miss someone, you open up, and the moment they come close you feel crowded, irritable or blank. Then you feel lonely again and the cycle starts over. It can feel as if your feelings contradict each other from hour to hour.
In our sessions I slow this sequence down to the exact moment the longing turns into a need to escape. Usually a specific trigger sits there, such as being seen too clearly or feeling responsible for another person’s mood. I meet these protective moves with compassion, and I will also ask you to take responsibility for the ones that hurt people close to you.
When feelings fill the room, yours or someone else’s, you may become calm, logical and far away. You fix, explain or change the subject. Inside there is a blankness, or a wish to be alone. People may call you steady while you feel absent.
My view is that this distance protects you from something that once felt like too much, and needing space is no fault. I help you find what the numbness shields, at a pace that does not flood you, so you can stay present a little longer. You learn to say “I need a moment” before the door closes completely.
Years of reading other people’s moods, keeping the peace or meeting expectations can leave your own feelings faint. You know what others need from you. You are less sure what you need. That is a sign of how much you have adapted, not of something broken in you.
I help you notice your own emotional responses again and trust them as information about your needs and values. I will challenge you when I see you overriding yourself, but I will not tell you who to be. What we look for is a felt sense of your own preferences, so your life and your closeness with others start to fit you.
If you recognised yourself here, book a free call to talk it through, or choose a session time if you already feel ready to start.
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.
Your details are used to respond to your enquiry. Please leave detailed health information out of this form. Read the privacy policy for information about personal data, service providers and storage.
Understanding a feeling is a start, but the real change shows when you respond to it differently on an ordinary day.
Emotion-focused work with me will help you name what you feel more accurately, understand the need inside the feeling and change reactions that no longer serve you. Insight helps, yet insight that leaves your reactions unchanged gives little relief.
Over 22 years of practice I have seen emotion-focused sessions come alive when I take an active part in them. I stay close to what is happening in you during the session, I point out when we drift into explanation, and I challenge avoidance kindly. The 6 questions below describe what we work towards.
Related reading: How do I deal with a feeling that feels too big? and Why do I cry so easily, even over nothing?.
I help you tell the core emotion from the reactions wrapped around it. Irritation can protect sadness. Busyness can protect fear. Self-criticism can protect a longing you were taught to hide. When we answer the surface reaction only, the core stays untouched and keeps returning.
I tell you what I sense is happening and where I think the work needs to go. I will also question explanations that keep the feeling at arm’s length. When you are ready, book a session with me and we begin with one moment that matters.
You can, by learning its first signals. A heat in the chest, a drop in the stomach, a sudden thought such as “here we go again”. Each emotional storm has an early edge, and once you can feel it, you gain a moment to choose.
In our sessions I help you slow the sequence and notice what sets it off and what it is protecting. Seeing it is not enough on its own. We practise a different response in the session, then between sessions, until it works in a real conversation without me there.
Steadiness does not mean calm on the surface and turmoil below. It means staying present enough to feel what is there and still choose what you do. Some feelings need expressing. Some need soothing. Some are old and need understanding more than action.
I help you notice your body’s alarm sooner and learn what it is reacting to. We find ways of slowing the surge that suit you, and I will ask you to practise them for a few minutes each day between our sessions. Practice is what makes this usable.
Saying what you feel starts with knowing it, and with knowing which part is yours to carry. Fear, shame or old resentment often blur the message, so it comes out too sharp, too vague or not at all.
Together we search for wording that is truthful, concrete and sized to the feeling. I will challenge you when you swallow what you feel, and also when you expect someone else to manage it for you. We often rehearse a real conversation in the session, so you can hear how it sounds before you have it.
Decisions get clearer once you sort out which feelings carry useful information and which are repeating an old danger. Guilt can say you are wrong when you are simply different. Fear can call something unsafe that is merely new.
I help you listen to each feeling, look at what each option would ask of you and connect the choice to your values. I give you my honest view and name avoidance when I see it. The decision stays yours.
Change has to show up outside the session: in how you recover from a hard day, how you set a limit, how you stay in a difficult talk. You may need new boundaries, more rest, different routines or relationships in which you can show what you feel.
With me you sort out which habits of feeling need reshaping and which already serve you. Sensitivity and intensity are not faults to remove. The aim is a life in which your feelings guide you rather than ambush you, and in which you recognise yourself.
You can also send me an email
You do not need a diagnosis, the right vocabulary or a tidy history. We begin with what you feel now and what you want to change.
When you begin, I listen closely to what you bring, help you find the feeling that matters most and give our work a clear direction from the start. You do not have to tell me your whole history first.
Emotion-focused work is one strand of my online psychotherapy, structured individual work on your inner life and your relationships. If the feelings mostly arise between you and a partner who is willing to join, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. When you expect the work to take a while, a therapy bundle gives you real savings and the steadiness of a plan.
I ask what brings you now, which feeling is hardest to live with or hardest to reach, what you have tried and what you hope will change. Then we usually slow down one recent moment together, so you can feel how this work actually goes.
As the 50 minutes close, I tell you how I read your emotional pattern so far and where I would take the work. You can judge whether my approach feels useful to you. Prefer a conversation before committing? A free 30-minute call is there for that.
Individual work fits when the focus is your own emotional life: how feelings arise in you, what you learned to do with them and how that shapes your choices and relationships. We can explore your relationships deeply without anyone else on the call.
In individual sessions I give you direction, continuity and honest challenge over time. If you would rather look at your life more broadly, online psychotherapy describes my structured individual work as a whole.
Couples therapy fits when the relationship itself needs sustained attention: the same fight returns, trust has been damaged, or one of you reaches out while the other withdraws. Then both of you usually need to be part of the work.
In couples work I help you both see the cycle you are caught in, own your share of it and find safer ways to meet. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing. Some people start alone with their feelings and bring their partner in later.
The pace depends on how intense things are, how much room your life has and how much continuity the work needs. Emotional work builds on itself, so long gaps can mean starting over each time.
I usually recommend weekly sessions at first, or every second week when life is full. I will tell you plainly if we are meeting too rarely to make progress, or when we can safely space out. For some people a block of sessions close together suits better.
A bundle makes sense when you know the work will need several sessions and you would rather not decide after each one whether to continue. Painful feelings often bring a wish to stop just as something shifts. A planned course protects that moment.
Buying emotion-focused sessions as a bundle trims what each one costs, and the agreed structure gives tender work a safer frame. You can read more on therapy discounts and bundles and in the cards further down.
It has done its job when you can feel what you feel, understand it and choose your response, and when the old pattern no longer drags you back as before. Hard feelings still come. They just stop running the show.
I review progress with you openly, and I do not encourage therapy without an end. We may meet less often, pause or stop. Coming back later with something new does not undo what we did.
Not sure emotion-focused work is where to start? Here is how it compares with the options people most often weigh up.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| EFT online psychotherapy (this page) | Your feelings overwhelm you, confuse you or seem out of reach, and you want to work with them directly. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online psychotherapy | You want to look at your life broadly, with emotions as one theme among several. | 1-hour video sessions at a pace you choose |
| Acute EFT online psychotherapy | Something has just happened and your feelings need help within days. | Sessions close together for a short period |
| EFT psychotherapy, living abroad | Life in another country and culture is central to what you feel. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions |
EFT online psychotherapy with me is individual, emotion-focused therapy by video, in English, for adults whose feelings have become overwhelming, confusing or hard to reach. It helps you identify the core emotion under your reactions, understand the need it carries and respond in a way that fits your life now.
I trained in emotion-focused therapy at the EFT Institute in Copenhagen and combine it with my depth-oriented way of working with the whole person. You will find it as a main strand within my online psychotherapy.
Come when your feelings are costing you sleep, focus, relationships or sound choices, or when you feel strangely little about things that matter. Your own sense that something is off is enough.
I look at how long the pattern has been there, whether it is getting stronger and what you have stopped doing to avoid it. If the same feeling keeps returning however much you understand it, it needs proper attention.
Yes, often it can. We slow the experience down, find which emotion is most alive and reach the need inside it, so the feeling has somewhere to go. I cannot promise how fast things change, and I do not offer quick fixes.
In my clinical experience, people who feel flooded have often been trying hard to push the feeling away, which makes it push back harder. I adjust the pace so you stay in contact with your own judgement while we work.
Numbness is very welcome in this work. It is usually a protective response that once kept you safe, rather than a sign that nothing is there.
I approach what the numbness covers carefully and at your pace. You will not be pushed into strong feelings before you can use them. Often the first sign of change is a small flicker of something, and we treat that flicker with respect.
Both are ways of trying to feel safe when emotions run high. Some people reach out urgently and need an answer now. Others withdraw and sort it out alone. Many do both, depending on the day. It is a learned way of coping, not a flaw.
I help you see which way you move, what that move is trying to achieve and what it costs you and others. Then we practise steadier options: naming a need plainly, and taking space without disappearing.
We begin with what feels most pressing. I ask about a recent moment when your feelings took over or went missing, and we slow it down together. By the end you will have my first understanding and a sense of what we would work on.
There is nothing to prepare, and you do not need the right words for feelings. When you feel ready, choose an emotion-focused session or open with a short free call.
Plan for a course of sessions over some months rather than a single conversation. That usually gives enough time to understand your emotional pattern and start responding differently. Patterns rooted in early experience usually need longer.
In 22 years of practice I have seen that a clear first stretch, reviewed honestly, works much better than open-ended drifting. At each review we decide together whether to continue, meet less often or finish.
Yes, for most people it does. Many find it easier to let feelings come when they are in their own space, and the work continues if you move or travel. I watch your face and voice closely on screen, and we pause whenever something needs time.
You need a private room, headphones, a stable connection and a laptop or tablet, plus a few minutes after the session before you go back to others. The calendar shows times in your own time zone, and we can talk it over on a free call.
Emotion-focused work is individual psychotherapy, so you book it as 1-hour online sessions with 50 minutes of therapy. You will find today’s fees, shown in US dollars, on the prices page.
Should you expect emotional work to run over months, a therapy bundle takes 10 per cent off every session and sets out a plan we both know. The options are on therapy discounts and bundles.
The quickest route is to book an emotion-focused session yourself. If you need to ask something first, a free 30-minute call works well, and every time offered appears in your own local time.
If no time works, or your feelings have become acute, write to me directly. I hold some room for acute cases, usually a time within days, and acute EFT online psychotherapy describes that help. Choose a time, and we start from what you feel today.
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.
Sign up for my occasional writing on feelings, relationships and life between cultures. No spam, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.
Please fill in your details and I’ll contact you soon. I use your details to reply to your enquiry, talk through practicalities and, if you wish, arrange an online session. Requesting a call also adds your email address to my mailing list. Please do not write sensitive information in the message field.
Clicking the button adds your email address to my mailing list. Please read the Privacy Policy for more information.
P.S. I’ll call you in a bit!
