Charmaine Zahra
Psychotherapist and Internal Family Systems Therapist
Post Graduate diploma in Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems Level 2
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Relational pain can run deep—whether it’s the ache of loss, emotional disconnection, attachment wounds, or family estrangement. You might find yourself overwhelmed, anxious, numb, or stuck in patterns that don’t make sense. Maybe you’ve read all the books and made all the connections, but something still doesn’t shift. I’m a trauma-informed therapist with specialist training in Internal Family Systems (IFS), and I work with people who carry these kinds of invisible injuries. I bring both professional training and lived experience to my work, which allows me to sit alongside you with genuine care, curiosity, and compassion. Clients often tell me they feel at ease in our sessions. They appreciate the way I help them go deeper gently, how I ask the right questions at the right time, and how I honour both their pain and their potential. My aim is not just to help you understand yourself better—but to feel more whole, more free, and more at peace in your internal world.
My approach is relational, collaborative, and trauma-informed. I don’t believe in quick fixes or simply managing symptoms. Instead, I help you explore what’s underneath—what your anxiety, emotional reactivity, shutdown, or self-criticism might be trying to protect you from. I draw on a variety of therapeutic approaches but specialise in Internal Family Systems (IFS). IFS is a powerful and compassionate way of working with inner conflict. Rather than pushing past the parts of you that resist change, IFS helps us engage with them—curiously and respectfully—so they can soften and heal. Many of my clients arrive with deep insight into their trauma. They understand why they feel the way they do, but still find themselves stuck. That’s because insight alone doesn’t heal trauma—connection does. IFS allows for this deeper connection to happen, not just intellectually, but emotionally and somatically. Through our work together, you’ll begin to understand yourself in a new way. Clients often describe feeling lighter, more spacious, and better able to regulate emotions and communicate with loved ones. They feel more self-compassionate, more grounded—and more themselves.
Before training as a therapist, I worked in business management. That experience helps me understand the very real stress of high-pressure environments and the challenge of balancing work with everything else life demands. My interest in people and relationships led me to retrain, beginning with a psychology degree. I then worked in schools supporting children with learning differences and emotional needs, and I taught Emotional Literacy, Social Skills, and Anger Management—work that gave me early insight into how our emotional patterns form and protect us from a young age. As a therapist, I’ve worked at Wandsworth Bereavement Service, supporting people through many kinds of loss—not just bereavement, but the quieter griefs of estrangement, identity loss, or disconnection. At The Awareness Centre, I supported people from all walks of life with a wide range of emotional struggles. Through it all, one theme has stayed constant: the impact of relational injury, and the deep human need to feel understood, connected, and safe. That’s what drew me to Internal Family Systems (IFS), and why it’s now central to my work.
I work in Wimbledon, Tooting and online