In this short video, I talk about the struggle I meet most often in fathers, and why a father’s own inner life matters so much to his children.
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Online therapy for fathers helps you when the weight of providing, the speed of family life or a growing distance from your children has begun to wear you thin. It is an hour that belongs to you alone: a 1-hour video session with 50 minutes of therapy, in English, booked at a time that works around your family and your time zone.
I help you see what fatherhood is stirring up in you, steady yourself and find a way of being a father that feels like yours. Fatherhood is a main branch of my online psychotherapy for men. With a baby or toddler at home, online new fathers therapy goes further, and after a separation, online divorced fathers therapy is the place to begin.
Somewhere between the school run and bedtime, you can ask for a free 30-minute call, book a session, read my client policy or write to me.
Online therapy for fathers is for fathers anywhere in the world who love their children and are struggling with what fatherhood asks of them. Perhaps you feel stretched thin, quick to anger, far away or simply not good enough, and you want help for yourself so you can be the father you set out to be.
Fathers struggle in many different ways, and some situations call for more specific help. If a line below is nearer to your life, follow its link.
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.
“Across the 9 countries I have lived and worked in, I have come to see fatherhood in one particular way. The man who worries most about being good enough is rarely failing his children. He is failing himself. He pours everything into work and family, keeps nothing back, and then wonders why he is short-tempered, flat or absent at the dinner table. His child is quietly asking ‘Do you see me, Dad?’ The father is quietly asking ‘Is there one hour in the week when nobody needs me?’ Both questions deserve an answer. I firmly believe that a father who takes his own inner life seriously gives his children something no amount of providing can.”
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.
Ryan is 44, a logistics manager from Cork who moved to Dubai 7 years ago with his wife and their children, now 13 and 7. He covers the school fees, coaches the under-8s on Fridays and answers work calls on the drive home. His wife says he is in the house but not in the family. Last week his son asked whether he could “book a meeting” with him. Ryan laughed, then lay awake.
I would ask Ryan what fatherhood means to him and what his own father was like at home. In a first video session he would probably see that he has been fathering through tasks, and that his son is asking for something he himself rarely received: attention with no job attached.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have put in the hours, kept the family afloat and held nothing back, yet you feel a long way from your children, and from yourself.
You do not need a dramatic reason to come. Feeling irritable, worn out or cut off as a father is enough, and nothing has to explode at home first. Over 22 years I have sat with many fathers who thought their struggle did not count because nothing terrible had happened, and I can tell when a hard season has turned into a pattern.
The work starts with you, not with your children’s behaviour. The 6 questions below are the signs in fathers I take most seriously.
If so, pay attention to it. Many fathers live on a conveyor belt: work, pick-ups, homework, bedtime, late emails. Hardly anyone checks on you, and if they did, the words would not come. The tiredness does not lift with sleep, and your patience is thinner than you would like.
I would look with you at how long this has gone on, what you carry alone and whether family life has slowly been arranged around your absence. If this describes every week, book a session with me.
Both wishes are real. Part of you wants to be the dad on the floor building a fort. Another part craves quiet, a long run or a closed door. You feel guilty when you take time for yourself, and resentful when you do not.
I do not side with either. The first guards your bond with the children. The second guards the man who has to keep showing up. I help you take time openly and come back fully, instead of being half there all the time.
Many fathers carry this without a word. The children run to her when they fall over and tell her their secrets. You watch from the edge, feel like the second parent, and either try harder or pull back to protect yourself.
Wanting to matter to your children is legitimate, and I will not shame it. I help you quieten the comparison, find your own ways of connecting and ask your partner for room to father in your own style. Children usually need something different from each parent.
It happens to many fathers. You plan a whole Saturday together, then snap within the first hour. You long for your teenager to open up, then lecture the moment she or he does. Closeness feels wanted and demanding at once.
I help you slow this down and see what flips the switch, often feeling helpless, criticised or suddenly back in your own childhood. I have compassion for these reactions, and I will also hold you responsible for repairing things with your child afterwards.
Plenty of fathers do. The noise, the requests and the feelings pile up, and you disappear into your phone, the garage, the study or the gym. It gives you back some control, and at home it can look as if you do not care.
I will not shame your need for quiet. I help you see what the distance shields you from, often a fear of being swamped or of getting it wrong, and help you say “give me 15 minutes and I am all yours” before withdrawal turns into absence.
Fatherhood can swallow a man whole. Work, family and duty fill every hour, and the man you were, with friends, interests and dreams, fades from view. You may not consciously miss him. You just feel flat.
Sam Keen, in “Fire in the Belly”, describes men whose sense of self is bound up with work and achievement, and the journey towards a fuller life with room for feeling, friendship and care. Fatherhood can be part of that journey. I help you separate what is yours from roles you took on, and I challenge you when you vanish into duty, without telling you who to be.
If you recognised your own family life in these questions, ask for a free call to talk it over, or book a session 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 why fatherhood is hard for you is a start, and your children will only feel the change at breakfast and bedtime.
Our work will help you understand what fatherhood stirs in you, notice the patterns that keep repeating and make changes your family can feel. Insight alone rarely changes how you react to a screaming child at 7 in the morning, so the work has to reach those moments.
I take an active part. You will hear what I observe in you as a dad, get plain questions and meet resistance when an excuse is keeping you in place. Since 2010 I have been a student of men’s work, and it adds to and deepens my training as a psychotherapist. One image from it helps many fathers. Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, in “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover”, describe the King as the part of a man that brings order and gives his blessing, letting others know they are seen and good. Many fathers were never blessed like that themselves. These 6 questions show what we work towards.
Related reading: Why am I the one who has to remember everything?.
Together we pick out the real difficulty from the clutter of daily family life. Fights about screens and bedtimes are real, yet often they are symptoms. Beneath them may sit exhaustion, a dread of failing, grief about your own childhood or a belief that you are worth only what you provide.
I tell you what I think and question lines like “that is just what dads are like”. If you want to reach the root, book a session with me.
By learning its earliest signals. A whine, shoes left in the hallway or a remark from your partner can start it: a clenched jaw, a hot face, a thought like “nobody in this house listens”. Notice that first link and you have a moment to choose.
In our sessions we replay one of those mornings slowly and look at what the reaction protects you from. Seeing it is not enough, so we rehearse a different response until you can use it on a chaotic school morning.
Calm does not mean swallowing what you feel. It means remaining there, face to face with your child, long enough to pick how you respond. Some of your frustration belongs to the moment. Some of it is old and comes from your own past.
I help you notice when your body tips into alarm and find concrete ways to slow down, such as lowering your voice, kneeling to eye level or breathing out before you answer. You will need to practise a little each day between sessions.
Speaking up at home begins with knowing what you feel and need as a father. Many fathers hold it in until it bursts out as a sharp comment or a slammed door. Others say nothing and drift.
I help you find words that are truthful and sized right for your partner, and simpler ones that suit your children’s ages. I challenge you when you silence yourself, and also when you expect the family to read your mood. We rehearse real conversations, such as asking for one free evening a week.
Choices about working hours, a posting abroad, a move home, schools or another child get clearer once you separate guilt, duty and other people’s expectations from what you value.
I help you lay the options side by side and see what each would ask of you and your family. I will tell you what I think, and I will say so if you seem to be stalling. The decision stays yours.
Change has to reach past our sessions. It may mean leaving work earlier 2 days a week, a phone-free dinner, a regular outing alone with each child, a friendship with another father where you can be honest, and time for yourself that needs no apology.
I help you sort what to change from what is already good. Much of what you bring, such as your reliability, your jokes and your care, already works. The aim is a way of fathering that is recognisably yours.
You can also send me an email
You can arrive without a neat diagnosis or polished sentences. We start with what is happening in your family now.
Early on, I listen for what sits at the centre of your struggle as a dad and set a course for our sessions. Your whole history can wait.
This is focused online psychotherapy, structured individual work on you as a father. Online psychotherapy for parents looks at parenthood for mothers and fathers alike, while this page sees fatherhood through a man’s life: the provider role, your own father and what you want to hand on. If you and your partner want to work on parenting together, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. For a planned course, a therapy bundle gives real savings and an agreed plan.
I ask what brought you here now, what feels hardest about fatherhood, what you have tried and what you want to change. I listen for when the struggle began and what it reminds you of.
Before the hour ends, you hear my first take on what is happening for you and a suggested direction, and you decide whether that is useful. To talk before booking, request a free 30-minute call.
Individual work fits when the focus is mainly you: your temper, your tiredness, your distance, your history with your own father. We can look at your family in depth without anyone else on the call.
Week to week I hold the continuity and give you a frank account of what I see. If fatherhood has opened wider questions, online psychotherapy describes my individual work more broadly.
Choose couples therapy when the relationship between you and your partner needs sustained attention: recurring rows about the children, a team in name only, or a distance that has grown since the children arrived. Both of you need to be willing.
As an EFT couples therapist, I help the 2 of you recognise the loop you get caught in and grow a warmer, more secure partnership. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing. Some fathers do individual work first.
It turns on how strained life is, how much room your diary has and how much continuity the work requires. When home feels close to breaking point, sessions close together help. For long-standing patterns, a steady rhythm works well.
I suggest starting weekly or every second week, and I will say so honestly if the gaps grow too long or when we can ease off. Early-morning or late-evening slots in your time zone can fit around bedtimes, and back-to-back sessions over a few days suit fathers who travel.
A bundle makes sense when you know you want to give this a few months. Busy fathers tend to cancel themselves first. A planned course protects your time for the work, just as you protect time for your children.
It brings real savings and a fixed plan in a week that is already full, and I will help you decide whether one fits. Therapy discounts and bundles lists the choices, and the cards further down summarise them.
It has done its job when you feel steadier, closer to your children and more like yourself, and when old reactions no longer run family life. Your partner and children may notice before you do.
We check honestly, as we go, whether the sessions still give you something, and I will not stretch them out. Sessions can thin out, pause or stop. Coming back when a child reaches a new stage is part of a father’s life, not a failure.
Not sure this is the right starting point? This table places it beside the routes dads most often look at.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online therapy for fathers (this page) | You want help as a man and a father with the pressure and distance in family life. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online psychotherapy for parents | You want help with parenthood in general, as a mother or a father. | 1-hour video sessions on your own |
| Online new fathers therapy | You have a baby or toddler and are struggling with the change. | Weekly or fortnightly video sessions |
| Online divorced fathers therapy | You are separated and your role as a father has changed. | A steady course of video sessions |
It is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for men struggling with what fatherhood asks of them: pressure, exhaustion, temper, distance or a sense of not being good enough. The aim is to make sense of what goes on inside you, so you can be calmer and more fully there.
The work includes the whole man, from your past and your body to your own father and the legacy you want to leave. Within my online psychotherapy for men, it is the branch for fatherhood.
Get in touch when months of snapping, retreating or feeling unknown to your children have piled up. You do not need to wait for a crisis.
I look at how long it has gone on, whether it is spreading into your relationship and your health, and what you no longer enjoy. Fathers often come late because they think they ought to cope. Coming earlier is easier.
Yes, often. A father’s temper usually sits on top of exhaustion, stress or something old. I cannot promise how fast it changes, but steady work on what lies underneath usually does more than willpower. If your anger ever makes your children or partner unsafe, safety comes first, and online anger management for men is the more focused page.
In my clinical experience, a shouting dad is far more often scared than unkind. We would look at what sets the anger off and how to repair with your child afterwards.
If part of you also senses that something is not working, yes. Many fathers come because a partner nudged them, and that is a fine way to begin. We start with what you want, not with your partner’s list.
I am not here to referee between you, or to hand you a rulebook for fathering. My job is to help you see what blocks you. If after a few sessions it is not helping, you are free to stop.
Both moves are ways of feeling safe. Closeness with a child can feel tender and exposing at once, especially if nobody held you that way. So you move towards them, then slip off into chores or your phone. It is an old pattern meeting a new situation, not a flaw.
We study the moment just before you withdraw and what that withdrawal costs both of you. Bit by bit, you learn to stay put for longer.
We start with your family as it is now: a normal weekday, the hardest moments, what you would like to change. I will also ask about your own dad and your upbringing, since those usually leave fingerprints on how a man parents. You leave with my early view of what drives the strain.
There is no homework beforehand. Pick a session time that suits your week, or begin with a free call.
Expect several months, meeting once a week or once a fortnight. Habits rooted deep in your own childhood tend to take more time.
With busy fathers in particular, I like to agree a first block of sessions and then step back and review it together, so the work does not drift. That is when you decide whether to continue.
Yes, with a little planning. Many fathers take the session after bedtime, in the car before pick-up or from a quiet office. You need a door that closes, headphones and a stable connection, and the children should know that this hour is yours.
Video also means your therapy continues through business trips, school holidays and moves between countries. The booking calendar shows all times in your own time zone. If you are unsure how to fit it in, we can work it out on a free call.
You book individual psychotherapy as 1-hour video sessions with 50 minutes of therapy, and the current fee in US dollars is on my prices page.
A bundle of sessions saves 10 per cent and gives you a fixed plan, set out on therapy discounts and bundles.
Book a first session for yourself as a father, or request a free 30-minute call if you would like to talk first. A line about what is hardest is enough.
Should none of the slots fit around family life, send me a message and we will find something. When something has gone badly wrong at home, I hold some room for acute situations, usually a time within days, described on acute online psychotherapy. Choose a time, and we start where 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!
