Zaida Fontes, NCPS

Zaida Fontes helps people who are facing hard moments find steadier ground. She speaks English and Portuguese and aims to make the first step feel more manageable. Zaida frames each session around what matters to the individual and looks for practical ways forward.

She believes clients are the experts of their own stories and brings nine years of experience to her work. Zaida has supported people with addictions, trauma and abuse, low self-esteem, depression, grief and parenting stress. She also addresses issues such as abandonment, attachment difficulties, codependency and challenges that follow separation or family conflict.

Her approach draws on attachment-based ideas that focus on relationships and emotional bonds. She also uses client-centred and emotion-focused ways of working to help people feel heard and to deepen emotional understanding. Dialectical behaviour therapy skills are used when managing strong emotions and improving everyday coping.

Sessions are conversational and paced to the person in the room. Zaida listens carefully, helps name patterns, and works with clients to try different strategies between meetings. She encourages small, realistic steps so progress can build over time.

Zaida is registered with NCPS, which appears on her professional record. She works with people in the United Kingdom and accepts international clients, choosing approaches to match each individual’s goals and circumstances.

How Zaida applies therapeutic approaches online

Attachment-based work focuses on the way important relationships shape feelings and behaviour, helping people understand patterns in close connections and why those patterns can cause distress. Client-centred therapy emphasises listening and empathy, giving people space to be heard and to lead the pace of their own healing. Dialectical behaviour therapy, or DBT, teaches practical skills for managing intense emotions, improving calmness, and strengthening interpersonal effectiveness.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. Zaida will talk with each person about their needs, goals and preferences and then suggest which methods to try first. This is a collaborative process and can change as progress develops or priorities shift.

Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat or text-based messaging to make therapy easier to fit into life. Video helps preserve face-to-face interaction, phone can work when bandwidth is limited, and messaging supports brief check-ins or ongoing written reflection. These options give flexibility for different routines, schedules and comfort levels while keeping the therapeutic focus on practical change.