Hello, I am Martina

I'm an integrative counsellor based in Tunbridge Wells, working with adults navigating some of life's harder and less talked-about experiences — family estrangement, identity, grief, trauma, shame, and the patterns that form around difficult relationships and childhoods.

Born in Prague and living in the UK for over 25 years, I know something about navigating between worlds, about the quiet work of figuring out who you are when the culture you grew up in, the family you came from, and the life you're living now all seem to tell you different things.

People often tell me they feel genuinely heard in our sessions — that there's space to say the things they haven't been able to say elsewhere. I bring warmth, directness, and genuine curiosity to the work, and I'm not afraid of a gentle challenge when it's needed. I take this work seriously, and I take you seriously — your struggles, pain and suffering matter.

My healing journey has been one of moving towards the harder parts of myself with curiosity rather than judgement — the shadow, the not-so-comfortable parts.

I know what it is to feel lost, adrift, ashamed, stuck. To not feel like you fit, and to feel the pressure to conform anyway. That work has given me both a choice and a responsibility: to become the author of my own life rather than a passenger in someone else's story.

A serious illness along the way shifted something fundamental — a clarity about what actually matters, and a deep respect for the courage it takes to face the difficult things rather than push them away. I bring that understanding into the room.

I provide a thoughtful and holding space for those navigating the unique grief that accompanies a serious illness or chronic health condition — whether you are the one diagnosed or perhaps supporting someone who is. This is a very specific kind of loss—it is the quiet, often invisible process of grieving a body, a future, or a sense of certainty that used to be there, and finding a way to carry that change forward, slowly learning how to live a life that looks completely different.

I have a particular place in my heart for parents of children who are different, have additional needs or challenges, or are neurodivergent — whether formally diagnosed or not.

I know that world from the inside — the exhaustion, the relentless advocacy, the grief that sits quietly alongside the love. If you're worn down from fighting for someone you love — and maybe starting to wonder, as many of us do when our children get diagnosed, whether you're neurodivergent yourself — and tired of feeling like there's something wrong with you rather than something wrong with the world, you'll find someone here who genuinely gets it.

What kind of life do you actually want — and what's getting in the way of living it?

That question sits at the heart of everything I do.

Qualifications & Experience

I hold a Level 6 Diploma in Humanistic Integrative Counselling and a Certificate in Counselling (both Dunamis Therapy Hub), and have completed Foundations of Modern Psychology and Research Methods at Birkbeck University. I am a Registered and Accredited Member of the BACP.

My ongoing training and continuing professional development covers trauma, sexual abuse trauma, suicide and self-harm prevention, grief and loss, inner child work, and creative interventions.

Alongside my private practice I have worked with MIND, in employee assistance programmes, and in a hospice — supporting clients, caregivers, and bereaved families through some of the most significant moments of their lives. That breadth of experience matters to me, and I bring all of it to the room.