Madeleine Heffernan, BACP

Madeleine Heffernan is a counsellor based in Cambridge, United Kingdom, with eight years of practice. She helps people manage stress and anxiety, work through relationship and family difficulties, and cope with trauma, grief and loss. Madeleine also supports people facing issues such as addiction, eating concerns, parenting strain, compassion fatigue and the challenges of long-term health conditions.

Madeleine adapts her approach to suit each person. Sessions can include listening, gentle exploration of past experiences, and practical work on unhelpful thoughts and behaviours. She often encourages a kinder inner voice and may suggest short tasks to try between meetings.

Her background blends psychodynamic ideas with cognitive behavioural techniques and attachment-based thinking. That means she looks at how past relationships shape present patterns while also working on thoughts and actions that keep difficulties going. Emotionally focused ideas help when emotional bonds and closeness are central to the problem.

Madeleine offers a mix of live sessions and messaging during set hours, and she replies to messages daily within a defined time window. She uses a session rhythm that aims to fit around everyday life, with evening and daytime options on certain days.

People who choose her often want a collaborative space to better understand themselves and to try small, realistic changes. Madeleine frames therapy as a joint effort where the client’s experience guides the work and the pace.

How her therapeutic approaches work online

Madeleine draws on a mix of approaches that suit different problems. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thought patterns and trying small experiments to change them; it often helps with anxiety, low mood and stress. Attachment-based and emotionally focused ideas look at how past relationships shape current ways of relating and feeling, and they are useful when relationship patterns, intimacy or attachment issues are central.

Finding the right fit is part of the work. Madeleine treats choosing an approach as a collaborative process and will discuss what feels most useful based on a person’s goals, history and preferences. The method can be adjusted as progress is made.

Online work can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life. It removes travel time, lets people choose sessions at set times on certain days, and allows a mix of live conversation and short messaging check-ins. If you want to book, confirm the exact session formats available before you start so you know whether video, phone or messaging will be offered during your therapy.