Saida Melger
NEURODIVERSITY-AFFIRMING COUNSELLOR
Approach and background
I am a neurodiversity-affirming and sex-positive psychotherapeutic counsellor who believes people thrive when they feel seen, understood, and met as their whole selves.
I offer a warm, collaborative space where you can explore challenges such as anxiety, identity and self-esteem, relationship difficulties, past experiences, or feeling overwhelmed by life’s demands. We work at a pace that feels safe for your nervous system and supportive of your individual needs. As a late-diagnosed neurodivergent person myself, I understand the exhaustion of navigating a neurotypical world and the challenge of finding support that truly fits your needs. I bring lived experience alongside clinical training to our work together.
I believe it is important to adapt counselling to your individual ways of thinking, feeling, and processing the world. My integrative approach draws from humanistic and trauma-informed perspectives, blending relational, person-centred and psychodynamic understanding with practical strategies informed by dialectical behaviour therapy and ADHD coaching skills. This means our work can include both reflective exploration and developing tools that support emotional regulation, self-understanding, and everyday well-being.
Whether you want to work with a counsellor who understands neurodivergence, or you want to explore and make sense of your own neurodivergence, I bring knowledge of ADHD and autism to our sessions, including sensory needs, executive functioning challenges, difficulties with interoception or emotional clarity, and the impact of masking. Together, we might explore your past experiences, patterns in relationships, identity and sense of self, emotional regulation, stress, shame, and the experiences that shape how you move through the world.
I also work in a sex-positive and LGBTQIA+ affirming way, supporting open conversations about sexual health and wellbeing, including pleasure, consent, sexual identity and expression, compulsions, experiences of shame or past negative sexual experiences, sexual challenges, and exploring intimacy and diverse relationship structures.
My role is not to impose interpretations, but to support you in making sense of your experiences in a way that feels accessible and authentic to you. My intention is to create a space where you can show up as you are, without needing to mask, explain, or shrink yourself.
Training, qualifications, and experience
I hold an MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy and am a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP), working within their Ethical Framework.
Alongside my private practice, I work in sexual health services, offering counselling around sexuality, relationships, identity and sexual wellbeing. I am also a qualified National Autism Trainer (Anna Freud / AT-Autism), and I am currently undertaking ADHD coaching training to deepen my work with neurodivergent clients.
Before qualifying as a counsellor, I worked in various mental health settings including forensic and secure services, private psychiatric hospitals, care homes and voluntary organisation. In these roles, supported individuals experiencing complex trauma, severe mental illness and homelessness.
My approach continues to be shaped by ongoing professional development focusing on neurodiversity, trauma-informed practice, sexuality, and diversity and intersectionality.
Primary qualifications
MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy @ University of the West of England, 2023
Availability, fees, and contact details
I offer weekly and biweekly individual therapy sessions.
All sessions are 50-minutes long.
I am available in-person and online.
In-person sessions are currently on Fridays at the Brixton Practice.
I offer a 15-minutes free online-consultation to see how we might work together.
I charge £70 per session
You can contact me by email counselling@saidamelgar.com, or read more about me and my work at http://Saidamelgar.com