Rebeca Paiva, BACP

Rebeca Paiva is a counsellor with eight years' experience helping adults manage stress, anxiety, depression and relationship difficulties. She works in English and Portuguese and supports people facing trauma, grief, burnout and life transitions. Rebeca focuses on building self-worth and noticing patterns that keep people stuck.

Her background includes a Master’s in Health Psychology and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, and she is a BACP member. Rebeca combines a person-centred stance with practical tools from cognitive and behavioural approaches. Sessions aim to blend emotional understanding with concrete coping strategies.

Rebeca pays attention to attachment and the lasting effects of childhood experiences. She helps people who struggle with overthinking, panic, low self-esteem and difficulties setting boundaries. She also works with issues around addiction, intimacy, eating or sleeping problems, and career-related stress.

Therapy with her typically looks at unhelpful beliefs, coping habits and triggers. Conversations are framed with curiosity rather than judgement, and Rebeca draws out strengths clients already have. The focus is on small, achievable changes that make daily life easier.

She also offers support around specific areas like caregiver stress, codependency, commitment concerns, blended family challenges and kink-aware sexual issues. Sessions explore both emotional impact and practical next steps so people can feel more grounded and able to act.

How therapeutic approaches translate to online work

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck, and then choose actions that match their values. It can be useful for anxiety, depression and coping with life changes. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) looks at thinking patterns and behaviours and teaches practical techniques to reduce distress and improve daily functioning, such as managing panic or sleep problems. Attachment-Based Therapy explores how early relationships shape current patterns in close connections and can help with trust, intimacy and repeated relationship difficulties.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with each person about their needs, goals and preferences and suggest which methods to try. That process is collaborative and can change as the person learns more about what helps them most.

Online therapy offers flexible ways to meet. Rebeca provides video calls for in-depth sessions, phone sessions for lower bandwidth or a change of pace, live chat for shorter check-ins, and text-based messaging for ongoing support between sessions. These options make it easier to fit counselling around work, family and travel and to keep continuity when schedules change.