ABOUT DR HELEN LEWIS
The psychology of becoming a family
I'm a Clinical Psychologist based in Sheffield, specialising in the psychology of building a family and what it asks of people individually, and what it asks of their relationships.
DClinPsy · HCPC Registered
Certified Schema Therapist · EMDR Therapist ·
Gottman Method Couples Therapy
The patterns we carry rarely begin with us. They are inherited, often without our knowledge, from the families and experiences that shaped us.
Most of the people I work with are navigating something that sits at the intersection of selfhood, relationship, and experience.
It might be a partnership that has changed under the pressure of family life. Something from fertility, pregnancy, or birth that has never really gone away. Patterns that keep showing up no matter how hard they work to change them. Often more than one of these things at once.
I work with couples and individuals, drawing on Gottman Method Couples Therapy, EMDR, and Schema Therapy. My approach is collaborative and grounded in evidence, and I take seriously both the courage it takes to ask for help and the responsibility of being trusted with what matters most to someone.
I came to this work for reasons that are personal and professional. What I've come to understand, both through my own life and through years of clinical work, is that the patterns we carry — in how we attach, how we relate, how we respond under pressure — rarely begin with us. They are inherited, often without our knowledge, from the families and experiences that shaped us.
Parenthood is particularly good at bringing those patterns to the surface. The stakes feel higher, the pressure is greater, and the people we love most are closest. It is also, I believe, one of the most powerful opportunities for change that most of us will ever have.
SPECIALISMS
Perinatal trauma & birth experience
Relationships under the pressure of family life
Patterns rooted in early attachment
Antenatal relationship preparation
COUPLES WORK
Gottman Method Couples Therapy
A research-based approach to understanding what is happening between you and what might be possible. I use the Gottman Method to help couples move from feeling stuck to feeling genuinely understood by each other again.
TRAUMA PROCESSING
For experiences that have never quite left, whether that’s something from pregnancy, birth, or earlier life that continues to shape how you feel and function now. EMDR works with the nervous system to process what the mind alone cannot always reach.
EMDR
DEEPER PATTERNS
Schema Therapy
When the same patterns keep appearing in relationships, in parenting, in how you respond under pressure, Schema Therapy offers a way to understand where they came from, and to begin to change them at their root.
When something shifts in the therapy room, the effects tend to move outward
Into how you parent, how you love, and what you pass on to the people who come after you. This is what I care most about, and it’s the reason I do this work.
Qualifications & Training
Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (DClinPsy, 2018)
HCPC Registered Clinical Psychologist
Certified Schema Therapist
EMDR Therapist
Gottman Method Couples Therapy (Level 2)
Philos Psychology Ltd, Sheffield — est. 2023
More about me:
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Clinical Psychology is one of the most extensively trained routes into psychological therapy. To become a Clinical Psychologist, you complete an undergraduate degree in psychology and then, typically after several years of building relevant experience in research, clinical, or community settings (and in my case, a Masters degree too), apply for the DClinPsy. This is a three-year doctoral programme that combines advanced clinical training across NHS settings, academic study, and original research. Entry to the doctorate is competitive, and the route from undergraduate to qualified psychologist commonly takes a decade or more.
The title is protected by law and regulated by the HCPC, which means there are clear professional and ethical standards that registered practitioners are required to meet.
In practice, what that means for you is that a Clinical Psychologist has a broad and deep understanding of mental health, human development, and psychological theory, and the clinical experience to draw on that knowledge flexibly, rather than working from a single fixed approach.
It's worth knowing because the therapy world can feel confusing from the outside. There are many skilled practitioners working under different titles and with different levels of training. A Clinical Psychologist sits at the doctoral level of that spectrum, and that shapes both the depth of assessment and the range of approaches available in our work together.
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I've been working in mental health since 2009 and qualified as a Clinical Psychologist in 2018. Since qualifying, I've worked in NHS and charity services with people carrying some of the most complex and longstanding psychological difficulties, and I've continued to develop my practice through specialist training in the approaches I use today.
I'm a Certified Schema Therapist, an EMDR Therapist, and I practise Gottman Method Couples Therapy. I completed the first two levels of Gottman training and am currently working through the pathway towards full certification. I've also completed three years of postgraduate training in Systemic Psychotherapy.
My specialism in the psychology of building a family developed over time, but the thinking behind it is simple: intervening at this particular point in people's lives feels like one of the most meaningful places to work, both for the people in the room and for what they carry forward into the next generation.
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I combine strong clinical training with an approach that is anything but passive. I listen carefully, and I'm also willing to intervene: to name what I'm noticing, offer a different perspective, or gently challenge something that isn't serving you. I don't leave people to figure it out alone.
Because I've trained across several evidence-based approaches rather than one, I can draw on what's actually useful for your situation rather than fitting you to a model. And because I specialise in one area of life rather than working across everything, I bring a depth of focus to this work that a generalist approach doesn't offer.
I see therapy as genuinely collaborative. I'll bring honesty and care in equal measure, and I'll take seriously both what you're carrying and what you're capable of.
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What connects EMDR, Schema Therapy, and the Gottman Method, and what draws me to all three, is that they each take relationships seriously as both the context for our difficulties and the place where change happens.
EMDR recognises that distressing experiences don't just affect us in isolation; they shape how we relate to ourselves and to the people closest to us. Schema Therapy understands that the patterns we carry almost always began in relationship, and that they shift most powerfully in relationship too. The Gottman Method is built on decades of research into what actually happens between two people, and what both of them need to feel genuinely connected.
My training in Systemic Psychotherapy runs underneath all of this: a reminder that difficulties rarely live in one person alone, but in the spaces between people and the contexts that shaped them.
That relational thread is what drew me to each of these approaches, and it's what holds them together in my practice. Whether I'm working with an individual or a couple, the question underneath the work is usually the same: how did this shape the way you relate, and what would it mean to do that differently?