About Donna

Here is mine.

Twelve years of listening, on the edge of the Atlantic.

Donna Sheppard by the window of her lamplit therapy room

Donna Sheppard · MBACP · Portstewart

I read your letter. Here is mine.

If you have found your way here, I imagine something has been sitting heavily with you for a while. Perhaps you have tried to carry it quietly. Perhaps you have told yourself it isn't bad enough to talk about. I want you to know: it is.

I have been a counsellor for more than twelve years. Before that, I was someone who needed one and didn't know how to ask. I remember the courage it took to pick up the phone. I remember sitting in the car outside, nearly driving away.

My room in Portstewart is small and warm, with a lamp, a window onto the garden, and a chair that has held a great many stories. Nothing you bring will be too much for it. I will not rush you, and I will not tell you who to be.

What I offer is attention — patient, steady, and on your side. Together we will look at what has been buried, and see what wants to grow.

Whenever you are ready, I will be here.

Credentials

MBACP — Registered Member, British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy
Diploma in Integrative Counselling (Level 5)
Certificate in Couples & Relationship Therapy
Trauma-Informed Practice — Advanced Training
Bereavement & Loss Specialist Training
Enhanced DBS checked · Fully insured · In regular clinical supervision

When I'm not working — I walk the Portstewart coast at dawn. I read. I garden.

The inner garden map

A path, not a prescription.

[ The garden grows with you · Every stage is a chapter ]

Nothing you bring is too much.

Your pace is the right pace.

You are the expert on your own life.

The therapy room

A lamp. A window. A chair.

A velvet armchair beside the window, lamp glowing

A candle burning low on the writing desk

Hands holding a warm cup of tea in dappled light

The letters we never send

What they wrote, before they were ready to speak.

Dear Mum,

I never told you how frightened I was that year. I smiled through every visit because I thought you needed me to. I needed you too.

— your daughter, still

To the version of me at 19,

You were not dramatic. You were not too sensitive. You were alone with something enormous, and you kept going anyway.

— me, at 41

Dear Tom,

I keep setting two cups out in the morning. The house is so quiet I can hear the clock in the hall. I don't know who I am when nobody needs me.

— M.

To whoever reads this,

I'm fine. That's what I say. I've said it so many times I don't know what the true answer would sound like anymore.

— unsigned

If something feels heavy, that's enough of a reason to reach out.

Begin a conversation →