Hi, I'm Max!
If you’ve come here anxious, low, worn down, or quietly asking whether this is really the life you meant to be living — you’re in the right place. I work with adults and couples on the difficulties that come with life’s harder chapters: anxiety, grief, low mood, relationship trouble, work pressure, and the deeper questions of meaning that sit under all of them.
I’m a counsellor and existential therapist, finalising my UKCP registration, trained in London at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling and Middlesex University. I see clients online across the UK and worldwide, and in person in Riga, under clinical supervision. Before training as a therapist, I spent over two decades in business, including running my own company — which shapes how I work with people under professional pressure, and with couples living between countries, languages, and cultures.
"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." (Viktor Frankl)
about me
My Professional Journey
I hold an MSc in Psychotherapy Studies and a BA in Psychology. My clinical training was at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling (NSPC) and Middlesex University in London, while my United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) registration is currently being finalised. I practise online in London and Therapy Space in Riga, under supervision, in accordance with the UKCP Code of Ethics.
Before training as an existential psychotherapist, I spent over two decades in business — in sales, marketing, and eventually founding and running my own company in food-processing industry. That chapter shapes the way I work now. I know from the inside what high-demand professional life can do to people: the pressure, the loneliness of decision-making, the slow drift between what a job asks of you and what actually matters. Clients who come to me from that world — navigating burnout, a difficult transition, or a growing sense that success has stopped meaning what they thought it would — usually notice quickly that they don’t need to translate.
This is not a profession one finishes learning. I take continuing professional development seriously as part of the work itself — regular workshops, seminars, and multi-week trainings, including over 130 hours of psychodrama, which informs the more active, experiential side of my practice: the moments when talking about something isn’t quite enough and it needs to be tried, shifted, or embodied in the room.
I’m a founder and co-editor of the Journal of Integrative Psychotherapy and Systemic Analysis, an associate member of the Federation for Existential Therapy in Europe (FETE), and a student member of The Society for Existential Analysis (SEA), London.
Alongside my clinical work, I’m interested in how existential perspective can contribute to a dialogue and meaningful social change. Also, I am researching what happens to presence, meaning, and the therapeutic relationship in the emerging conjunction of AI and human therapy. My recent qualitative study on presence in AI-supported therapy is one small part of that.
how i work
My Approach
My work is grounded in existential psychotherapy. That means taking your difficulties seriously as experiences, not only as symptoms to manage. Anxiety, low mood, the sense of being stuck usually have something to tell us — a loss, a difficult relationship, a way of coping that has stopped working, or a widening gap between how you’re living and what actually matters to you. What if these signals were worth listening to before deciding what to do about them?
Therapy with me isn’t a mysterious process. It’s an honest conversation about your life. I listen closely, ask questions, and share what I notice — sometimes gently, sometimes more directly. Together with you we begin to see patterns, assumptions, and possibilities that are hard to see alone. I’ll keep what matters to you at the centre. When it helps, I’ll question and challenge.
You are the expert of your own life. I won’t offer a ready-made answer for how you should live. What I bring is careful attention, therapeutic training, and another perspective — someone who can help you make sense of what you’re carrying, notice what’s worth changing, and face what cannot simply be removed. I’m both with you and for you: walking alongside, staying focused on what matters. We’ll look at the past where it illuminates the present, and attend to how you want to live now.
You may wonder what “existential” means in practice. In our therapy space, questions of meaning, choice, and how you want to live are central, while the work stays grounded in what’s actually troubling you. Although existential-phenomenological perspective is my foundation, I’m not rigid about methods and approaches. When it helps, I draw on present-focused tools for difficult thoughts and feelings; psychodynamic work when longstanding patterns need deeper exploration; and psychodrama when something needs to be worked with more directly than words alone allow.
In couples work, I draw on systemic and relational thinking. I pay close attention to what’s happening between you — the recurring cycles, the reactions, the protective moves each of you makes without quite realising. Blame is rarely a useful map here.
The shape and pace of the work are agreed with you, not imposed. We’ll check in regularly and honestly about whether therapy is doing what you came for.
My Practice
I work with individuals, couples, and business leaders — usually people who are managing well on the outside while privately carrying something they can’t easily put down.
Individuals come to see me at moments where the ground has already shifted or just starting to shift: after a loss, in the middle of a career change, when a relationship has ended or is asking to be lived differently, when the life on paper stops matching the life inside. Others come with more sustained difficulties — anxiety, panic, low mood, or a grief that hasn’t moved, family or partnership difficulties, questions of identity and sexuality, work pressure, or the slow erosion of self-worth.
With couples, I work at every stage — acute crisis, slow-building distance, and everything between. I pay particular attention to cross-cultural, multilingual, and expat couples, where differences in background and language quietly shape everything and often go unnamed. I work with the three presences in the room: each of you individually, and the relationship itself.
I also work privately with business owners, founders, and senior leaders who carry real responsibility and have few places where they can speak completely freely. Having spent many years in business myself before training as a therapist, I understand the commercial world from the inside. The themes that recur in this work are the ones executive coaching usually can’t hold: the weight of decisions taken alone, the isolation that responsibility brings, identity beyond role, generational themes around succession and legacy in family-owned enterprises, and what happens when the conventional measures of success stop feeling like enough.
I take an existential rather than pathologising approach to difficulties often framed as disorders, including addictions and eating difficulties, which I understand as strategies a person has developed to structure a life, rather than illnesses to eliminate. Where medical or specialist input alongside therapy is essential, I’ll say so.
I work in accordance with the UKCP Code of Ethics and under the supervision of experienced colleagues. Where someone’s needs fall outside what I can responsibly hold on my own, for example, acute presentations requiring medical stabilisation, or specialist work with children, I’m glad to refer to trusted colleagues.
Get in touch
A free first conversation
I offer a free 15–20 minute call, by phone or video. A chance for you to say briefly what’s brought you, hear how I work, and see whether working together feels right — a conversation, not a commitment.
You’re welcome to get in touch.
Let's Connect
Reach Out
To book a session or ask a question, feel free to call, send a WhatsApp or text message to +44(0)7903848913, or complete the contact form. I’ll respond as promptly as possible.
I’m happy to take your call unless I’m in a session. If I’m unavailable, please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can to answer any questions.
