In this short video, I explain why early adulthood so often feels like standing on moving ground, and how we use our video sessions to find something solid under your feet.
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Online psychotherapy for young adults helps you, if you are roughly between 18 and 30, understand the doubt, pressure and loneliness that can come with building a life of your own. 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.
I help you tell your own wishes apart from the expectations you grew up with, and take steps that feel like yours in study, work, friendship and love. This is the young adult door into my online psychotherapy. When one theme stands out, there is focused help for anxiety, an identity crisis, attachment and loneliness.
You can book a free 30-minute call, pick a first session time, read my client policy or send me a short message.
Online psychotherapy for young adults is for English speakers in their late teens and twenties, anywhere in the world, who feel unsure, stuck or alone while their peers seem to be moving ahead. You might be at university, in your first job or newly arrived in another country. You want someone outside your circle who can help you understand yourself and choose your next step.
Sometimes a young adult needs a more specific starting point. If one of these lines describes you better, the page it links to will serve you better.
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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 come to disagree with the idea that your twenties should feel like a launch. For most young adults they feel more like a long rehearsal with the lights half on, and I think that is how it is meant to be. What hurts is not the uncertainty. It is the verdict you pass on yourself for having it. Under the talk of plans and deadlines I often hear a younger question, ‘Will anyone notice me if I stop performing?’, and right beside it a guarded one, ‘Can everyone stop asking and let me figure this out alone?’. You do not need a finished map. You need enough ground inside you to take one honest step.”
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.
Joon is 24 and grew up in Seoul. 2 years ago she moved to Amsterdam for a master’s degree and stayed on as a junior analyst. On Sunday calls home she sounds cheerful. During the week she works late to avoid her empty room, eats at her desk and has turned down every invitation from colleagues since the summer. She has begun to wonder whether she even likes the job she fought so hard for.
I would start with that cheerful Sunday voice, because it shows how much Joon has learned to hide. In a first video session she would probably see that she is trying to be the proud daughter at home and the self-sufficient newcomer abroad, and that nobody, herself included, has asked what she wants.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have tried to sort it out on your own, and the distance between where you are and where you think you should be keeps growing.
Nobody gives you a signal in your twenties that it is now time to talk to a therapist. If something feels off, if ordinary days have become harder than you show, or if friendships and dating keep going wrong in the same way, that is reason enough. You do not need a diagnosis, a neat explanation or a dramatic crisis first. In 22 years of practice I have learned to tell a passing wobble from a pattern that deserves real attention.
I will help you see what is going on, what keeps it in place and what has to change, and I will be honest about what I notice. These 6 questions describe the signs I meet most often in people your age.
If so, take it seriously. In early adulthood trouble often shows first in the basics. You scroll until 3, sleep through the morning, leave messages unopened and live on whatever needs no cooking. From outside it looks like laziness. From inside it feels like watching your own life through a window.
I would look at when this started and whether it comes and goes or has settled in. That tells us whether this is a rough stretch or a pattern that will not lift alone. If it sounds like you, book a session with me.
Both wishes are real, and early adulthood is when they collide. One part of you wants your own choices without explaining yourself to your parents. Another feels swamped by all that freedom and longs for someone wiser to take the decision away. So you reject advice and feel lost, or follow it and resent it.
I do not treat either part as the problem. The independent one is separating you from your family so you can become yourself. The one that wants guidance is not childish. I help you ask for input and still keep your hands on the wheel.
Many young adults do, and a screen makes settling far harder. A message left on read, a photo you were not tagged in or a date who goes quiet can feel like proof that you are unwanted. You reread chats and send one more message to calm yourself.
Your wish to belong is legitimate, and I will not make you feel small for it. We work on the jolt of alarm that fires before you know whether anything is wrong, often an old fear of being left out, and you practise saying what you need directly.
It happens a lot in early relationships and friendships, and it leaves you baffled. You chase someone until they show interest, then your feelings switch off overnight. You open up to a new friend, then avoid them for a week because you feel exposed.
I help you slow this down, so we can find the exact moment wanting turns into running. Usually something specific sets it off: being seen too clearly, or fearing you will lose yourself. I understand why you learned to guard yourself, and I will also ask you to own the moves that hurt others.
Plenty of people your age cope by disappearing for a while. When flatmates want to talk or a group chat feels like too much, you mute everything and lose yourself in a game or a series. It brings relief. The cost is that people stop reaching out, which makes coming back harder.
My view is that needing to retreat is not antisocial, and I will not shame you for it. I help you take space without cutting yourself off. You learn to say “I need a quiet night, can we talk tomorrow?” and then actually come back.
Many people in their twenties realise they have been following a route set by parents, teachers or culture, and it no longer fits. You may have the degree or the job that looks right and still feel like a stand-in for your own life. That does not mean you are broken. It means your own questions are starting.
I help you sort which ideas about your life are truly yours and which you took in from your family and the culture you grew up in. I will challenge you when you hide from a choice, but I will not hand you an identity.
If one of these questions landed, book a free call to talk it through, or choose a session time if you already know you want to start.
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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 yourself matters, but the work also has to change how you spend your evenings, meet people and make choices.
Working with me will help you see what lies beneath the worry, the flatness or the confusion, notice the patterns that hold you in place and make changes you can feel in an ordinary week. Naming a pattern without living differently rarely brings relief.
In 22 years of practice I have found that people your age do well with a therapist who is active and honest. I will tell you what I see, suggest things to try and push back when a story keeps you stuck. The 6 questions below describe what we work towards.
For men: online therapy for young men. Related reading: Why am I so unhappy studying abroad when I wanted this? and When did I stop knowing what I want?.
I help you pull the real problem apart from the habits piled on top of it. The late nights, the putting off and the scrolling are ways of coping rather than causes. Underneath sits something sharper: a fear of letting your family down, homesickness nobody has named, or a belief that you only count when you achieve.
I tell you what I think is happening, what to tackle first and which stories need questioning, such as “everyone else has it sorted”. If that rings true, book a session with me and we will start sorting it.
You can learn its first signs, and that is where things shift. A spiral has a beginning: a comparison on your phone, a tight chest before a deadline, a thought like “what is the point”. Once you feel the first step, you gain a moment to choose differently.
In sessions I help you slow the sequence down and look at its triggers and its costs. Spotting it is only half the job. We practise another response until you can use it on a Sunday night before a hard week.
Steadying yourself does not mean pretending to be fine or forcing positive thoughts. It means staying present enough to know what you feel and decide what to do with it.
I help you notice the rise earlier and understand what your nervous system is responding to. We find ways of settling that suit your life, from sleep to how you use your phone. Most change happens between sessions, and 10 minutes of daily practice counts.
Clear words start with knowing what you feel, what you want and what is yours to decide. At your age this is often knotted up with family. You may still depend on your parents for money or approval while trying to choose for yourself, so disagreeing feels like exploding or giving in.
I help you find plain language that fits the size of the issue. I will challenge you when you go silent, and also when you expect others to guess. We often rehearse a real conversation, with a parent in another time zone, a flatmate or a manager.
Choices clear once you separate fear, guilt and other people’s hopes from what you actually know and want. Your twenties are full of decisions that feel permanent: changing course, staying abroad or going home, committing to someone. It is easy to freeze, or to grab any option just to end the uncertainty.
We lay the options side by side. I will give you my professional view and say when I think you are dodging or rushing, but the decision stays yours. Most choices at this age can be adjusted later, and knowing that often frees the next step.
Our sessions only count if they change the life you return to. The real test is your Tuesday morning, your next visit home and the evening you would normally hide away. You may need a new weekly rhythm, new friendships, firmer limits with family or permission to go slower than your peers.
Together we work out what needs to shift and what can stay. Being sensitive, ambitious or unsure is part of you, and none of it needs removing. The aim is choices that follow your own values rather than the fear of falling behind.
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You can arrive with no diagnosis, no tidy problem and no clever words. I start with your life this month and what you hope will change.
In the first weeks I listen closely, help you name what is really troubling you and give our sessions a clear focus. Your whole history can wait until later.
What you get is individual online psychotherapy, structured work on your inner world, your family story and the people in your life now. If the difficulty turns out to live mainly in your relationship, and your partner is willing, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. If you can tell this will take a while, a therapy bundle lowers the cost and fixes a plan in advance.
I ask what made you reach out now, what feels hardest, what you have tried and what you would like to be different. I also ask a little about your family and where you grew up, because that often explains a great deal. Useful work starts long before I know your whole story.
By the end I share my first understanding and suggest a direction, and then it is your call whether this fits. Would you rather talk before booking? Ask for a free 30-minute call.
Individual work is right when the focus is you: your feelings, your sense of who you are, your history and the way you relate to others. We can explore those relationships with nobody else on the call, which makes honesty easier.
You get one person who remembers what you said last week and tells you when you are going in circles. Online psychotherapy shows how this work fits into my structured individual work as a whole.
Choose couples therapy when the relationship, more than you, is what needs the work. If the same argument keeps coming back, if one of you chases while the other withdraws, if trust has been broken, or if you are deciding whether to move country together, working as a pair usually helps more.
With both of you on screen, I help you spot your loop, each own your part and find a calmer way of being together. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing. Some young adults begin alone and invite their partner later.
The right pace depends on how hard things feel, how much room your studies or job leave and how much continuity the work needs.
I usually suggest a session every week, or every second week if your timetable is tight. I will tell you if the gaps are too long, and when you are ready to meet less often. Several sessions can also be placed back-to-back over a few days, for example before exams or a trip home.
A bundle makes sense when you already know the work will take several sessions and you want continuity rather than deciding after each one. Motivation dips in a hard month, and a planned course keeps the hour in your calendar when you would otherwise cancel.
Paying ahead lowers the cost of each session. See therapy discounts and bundles and the cards lower on this page.
Therapy has done its job when what brought you in no longer runs your weeks and you trust yourself to meet what comes next.
I review progress with you openly and have no wish to keep you longer than it helps. Sessions can thin out, pause or end. Many people come back later in their twenties or thirties with a new question, and that is growth, not proof the first round failed.
Not sure this is where to begin? Here is how this page sits beside the options young adults most often weigh up.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online psychotherapy for young adults (this page) | You are roughly between 18 and 30 and feel unsure, stuck or alone as your adult life takes shape. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online identity crisis therapy | The question of who you are and what you want has become the centre of everything. | A focused course of 1-hour video sessions |
| Online loneliness therapy | Isolation and a lack of close connection are what hurt most. | Steady 1-hour video sessions over time |
| Online social anxiety therapy | Fear of being judged keeps you away from seminars, parties and new people. | Weekly video sessions at first |
Online psychotherapy for young adults with me is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for people roughly between 18 and 30 who struggle with worry, low mood, loneliness, identity or relationships while building a life of their own. It takes study, first jobs, leaving home and moving country seriously.
I work in depth, with the whole person rather than the symptom, including what you inherited from your family and culture. I work only with adults. This page belongs to my wider online psychotherapy.
Get in touch when what you are going through is costing you sleep, study, work, friendships or your sense of yourself, or when you notice yourself pulling back from life. Your own sense that something is wrong is enough.
I look at how long the difficulty has lasted, whether it is spreading and what you have stopped doing because of it. When it starts shaping your choices, it deserves care.
Yes. Feeling lost is one of the most common reasons young adults contact me, and we can work with it directly. I will not hand you a life plan or a quick fix. What I offer is steady, serious work that helps you hear yourself.
In my clinical experience, people who say they have no idea what they want usually sense more than they admit. The wish is buried under other people’s expectations or the fear of choosing wrong. We dig it out together and take small, real steps towards it.
Yes. You do not need a crisis to deserve help. Many young adults start because they feel flat, unsure or stuck, and want to understand why before it grows.
I do not measure whether you are struggling enough. I look at your life as it is and what you want to change. Either way, you leave the first session knowing what I see.
Both are attempts to feel safe when closeness seems uncertain. Holding on means more texts and more need for reassurance. Going cold means ghosting or retreating. Many young adults do both, depending on the person and the month. It is learned protection, not a flaw in your character.
I help you see which way you move under pressure and what it costs you and others. Then we build steadier options: asking for reassurance clearly, taking space without vanishing and staying in a hard conversation a little longer.
We talk about now: what made you reach out, what your days look like, what you have tried and what you hope will change. I ask a little about what was expected of you growing up. Before we finish, I tell you where I think we should start.
There is nothing to prepare. If you log on and say “I do not really know where to begin”, that is a fine beginning. Book a first session whenever it feels right, or try a free discovery call first.
Most young adults I see come for a few months, weekly or every second week, rather than for 2 or 3 talks. That is usually enough to see what keeps repeating and begin to change it. Difficulties rooted in family history, or tangled up with a move abroad, often take longer.
After 22 years of practice, I prefer a clear first block of sessions with an honest review to an open-ended drift. At that review we decide together whether to carry on, meet less often or stop.
Yes, for most young adults it works well, and it may feel more natural than a waiting room. You keep the same therapist if you change university, take a placement abroad or move home for the summer.
You need a private space, headphones, a steady internet connection and a laptop or tablet. If your walls are thin, a booked study room or a parked car can work. The calendar shows times in your own time zone, and we can settle any doubts on a free call.
You book individual psychotherapy as 1-hour online sessions, each with 50 minutes of therapy. My prices page shows the current fees in US dollars.
If you plan a longer course, a therapy bundle saves you 10 per cent and keeps a run of sessions set aside for you, which can help on a student or starting salary. Every option is listed on therapy discounts and bundles.
Book your first session online in a few minutes, or ask for a free 30-minute call if you want to hear my voice before you commit. A couple of lines about your situation are plenty.
If no time fits around your studies or work, or things feel acute, contact me directly. I keep some space for acute situations, usually within days, and acute online psychotherapy explains how that works. You do not need it all worked out. Just book the hour.
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!
