Aakansha Sharma, BACP

Aakansha Sharma is a counsellor with nine years of experience helping people navigate stress, anxiety, relationship difficulties, trauma, grief and a broad range of emotional and behavioural concerns. She brings a calm, empathetic presence and attentive listening to each session, working with adults, children and adolescents to build clearer understanding and practical coping strategies.

Her practice draws strongly on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help clients recognise patterns of thinking that contribute to distress and to develop more helpful ways of thinking and behaving. She also uses a client-centered approach that focuses on identifying an individual’s strengths and supporting personal growth at the client’s pace. Depending on a client’s needs and comfort, she integrates additional approaches such as Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), psychodynamic and humanistic techniques, solution-focused brief therapy, spiritual counselling and mindfulness-based work.

Her training began with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, completed in 2012, followed by a Masters in Guidance and Counselling from James Cook University, Singapore, completed in October 2016. To meet her masters requirements she completed an internship at NuLife Care and Counselling Services on 14 October 2016, where she worked with clients aged roughly 8 to 40 on issues including childhood trauma, domestic violence and substance use.

Between 2013 and 2015 she worked at the Centre for Psychotherapy, where she led drug intervention workshops at Changi Prison, Changi Women’s Prison and Tanah Merah Prison and contributed to youth-focused drug rehabilitation workshops in collaboration with the Ministry of Social and Family Development and the Central Narcotics Bureau. She later joined Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes in 2017 to deepen her experience with children and adolescents and completed an MSc in Child and Adolescent Mental Health at King’s College London in December 2019. She is a registered member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), a professional body for counsellors and psychotherapists in the UK.

Therapeutic approaches for online support

Client-centered therapy focuses on creating an empathic, nonjudgmental space where the client’s goals and strengths guide the work. This approach helps people explore their values, build self-awareness and strengthen their capacity to make choices that fit their life. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) offers a practical, skills-oriented way to identify unhelpful thought patterns and replace them with more balanced thinking and behaviour; it is commonly used for anxiety, depression and stress-related problems. Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-informed method used to reduce the intensity of troubling memories and trauma-related symptoms by combining focused recall with guided bilateral stimulation.

Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. Aakansha works collaboratively with each person to assess needs, discuss options and adapt techniques so that therapy fits the client’s goals, preferences and pace. This collaborative process helps determine whether a single method or a blend of approaches will be most helpful.

Online therapy offers practical flexibility - sessions can be scheduled as video calls, phone conversations, live chat or text-based messaging to suit different routines and comfort levels. These options make it easier to maintain continuity of care during busy weeks, when travel is difficult, or when working with international clients, while still allowing licensed professionals and therapists to deliver structured, goal-oriented support.