Olesya Ovchinnikova, PhD

I'm Olesya, a psychologist with a PhD in Social Sciences, specialising in somatic approaches to psychotherapy. My work is grounded in a longstanding interest in the places where body, mind, relationship and the wider social world meet.

I work particularly with trauma, attachment wounds, dissociation and experiences that can be difficult to reach through words alone. Many people who come to me already understand a great deal about themselves. They may know why they react in certain ways, recognise their patterns and have spent years trying to change them, yet still find that something in the body continues to respond as if the past were present. I am interested in working precisely at this meeting point between what we consciously know and what the body continues to carry — and in what can become possible when these old patterns begin to loosen.

My approach is relational, experiential and deeply somatic. I pay attention not only to thoughts and emotions, but also to sensation, movement, impulses, autonomic responses, relational dynamics and the subtle ways we protect ourselves from experiences that once felt too overwhelming to fully process. Rather than seeing these responses as pathology, I understand many of them as intelligent adaptations that helped us survive, belong or remain connected.

Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy has become an important part of this work because of its capacity to engage directly with dissociation, autonomic processing and relational trauma. In my practice, I integrate PSIP with Deep Brain Reorienting and other trauma-informed somatic approaches. What draws me to these methods is their ability to work beneath the level of explanation, while remaining attentive to relationship and to the unique pace and organisation of each person's nervous system.

My background in social sciences also shapes the way I understand psychological suffering. Our bodies do not develop in isolation: they are formed within families, relationships, cultures, histories and social environments. I therefore try to hold both the intimate and the wider context of a person's experience, including cultural identity, migration, belonging, shame and intergenerational patterns when these are relevant.

Ultimately, I see therapy less as correcting something that is wrong with us and more as creating the conditions in which what has been split off, defended against or left unfinished can gradually become available for integration. As old protective patterns become less necessary, there can also be more room for choice, vitality, creativity and new ways of being in relationship with ourselves and others. I aim to offer a thoughtful, engaged and human therapeutic relationship in which there is room for complexity, curiosity, for what the body already knows, and for the possibilities that can emerge when we are no longer organised primarily around what we had to survive.

While I am based in Switzerland, my life remains closely connected to the UK and I spend time regularly in London. For those interested in working together in person, intensive may also be available in the Netherlands and Jamaica; please enquire about possibilities and dates.