Magda Raczyńska
Photo by Elzbieta Piekacz
I'm a UKCP-registered Child and Adolescent psychotherapist with deep experience working alongside children, adolescents, young adults, and adults navigating emotional and relational challenges.
In a world increasingly dominated by digital tools and quick-fix solutions, I offer something distinct: a space grounded in live, human presence. My work is deeply relational, developmentally attuned, and rooted in the body, with close attention to the unconscious. I aim to help clients settle their nervous systems, restore internal rhythm, and build emotional and relational resilience.
How I Work
My clinical approach integrates psychodynamic, attachment-based, and embodied ways of working. I pay attention to unconscious, implicit right-brain to right-brain communication — the subtle, often non-verbal signals that underpin emotional regulation and the formation of self. This attuned relational focus supports the gradual rewiring needed for deeper internal change.
Playfulness and creativity are vital in this process — not just with children, but also with adults who may never have had space to explore freely or safely.
Clinical Focus and Influences
I have significant experience working with:
anxiety – depression – low self-esteem – social and communicational difficulties - self-harm – trauma – dissociation – anger and conflict – sibling illness – attachment disorders – behavioural problems – obsessive-compulsive presentations.
My practice is informed by current research in neuroscience, developmental psychology, and trauma studies. Depending on each client’s needs, I work flexibly and integratively — drawing on elements of play and art therapies including Jungian sandtray, somatic interventions, gestalt therapy, Internal Family Systems, psychoeducation, and tools from CBT/DBT (cognitive and dialectical behavioural therapy) where appropriate.
Why This Matters
This approach is particularly relevant for young people immersed in the digital world. For overloaded, overstimulated nervous systems that struggle with relating in real life, therapy offers a crucial opportunity to rest, breathe, rewire, and settle. It's not only about preparing for adulthood — it’s about creating a space where they can explore the versatility of ways of being, expand their capacity and humanness, their self-awareness and self-esteem, building resilience in the face of the world’s complexity.
Support for Parents and Families
I offer reflective parenting sessions, not as training or advice-giving, but as a space for deeper understanding of your child’s emotional world and your own place in the family dynamic.
I also pay close attention to the quieter children in families — those who may seem fine on the surface but whose emotional needs may have gone unmet, unacknowledged, or unspoken. They, too, often need space to process and feel seen.
Understanding Symptoms in Context
Whether I’m working with a teenager caught in rigid rituals, a young adult facing internal fragmentation, or a parent overwhelmed by their child’s distress — I aim to meet what’s emerging with care, steadiness, and depth. The work often touches into wider social realities: disorientation around identity or belonging, pressure to perform, the impact of social media, and collective emotional overload.
I see these not as separate from individual distress, but as part of the landscape we work through together — viewing symptoms like anxiety, OCD-like behaviours, or withdrawal as creative attempts to manage overwhelming conditions and search for stability in a fluid, fast-moving world.
My Professional Background
I trained as a psychotherapist at the Terapia Centre in London, specialising in integrative child and adolescent psychotherapy. Alongside my clinical work, I teach and supervise trainees in child and adolescent psychotherapy. My supervisory style is grounded in relational and creative methods, shaped by years of practice with young people and further informed by my current advanced training in group-analytic supervision at the Institute of Group Analysis in London.
Before becoming a therapist, I completed a PhD in sociology at Warsaw University and the Graduate School for Social Research, followed by an MA in contemporary art theories at Goldsmiths, University of London. I went on to curate the literary programme at the Polish Cultural Institute in London for over a decade. These earlier academic and cultural experiences continue to inform my clinical sensibility — enriching my capacity to hold complexity, work symbolically, and attune to emotional nuance.
What to Expect
The process usually begins with a brief, free phone call to discuss the concern, ask any initial questions, and consider practicalities. From there, we book an initial session to explore things in more depth — both in terms of therapeutic need and whether the fit feels right.
When working with children or younger adolescents, this typically involves two initial sessions: one with the parent or parents, and one with the child. With older adolescents or young adults, we may decide together to begin by meeting directly with them if that feels more appropriate.
Following these early meetings, we decide whether to continue and, if so, in what form. Therapy begins with a commitment to a minimum of six sessions, which provides enough time to assess emerging needs, begin establishing a safe therapeutic relationship, and consider next steps in a grounded way. Sessions are 50 minutes in length and are held weekly.
Wherever possible, I prioritise working in person. This is not just a logistical preference but a clinical one: embodied presence supports a fuller, more attuned relational process — particularly when working with younger clients, or when emotional difficulties stem from early developmental or sensory experience. While online sessions may be used in certain situations, they are not a substitute for the depth of contact possible face-to-face.
For parents especially, it’s important to understand that therapeutic engagement takes time. A child or adolescent may take several sessions to begin to show signs of trust, expression, or connection — and withdrawing too early, just as something is beginning to take shape, can be psychologically disruptive. Therapy is not a quick fix; it is a process that requires consistency, containment, and care. When the adults around a young person can hold that frame, it significantly increases the chance of meaningful change.
Where appropriate, I involve parents or carers in the therapeutic process — both to help sustain the work outside the room and to support the family system as a whole. When the adults around a young person can hold that frame, it significantly increases the chance of meaningful change.
I don’t offer surface-level solutions or push for quick outcomes. I offer a steady relationship that allows for authentic change — from the inside out. This is the long, slow work of becoming more fully human.
Sessions are available at two locations: Kensal Rise (NW10) and Finchley Central (N3 - currently fully booked).
Committed to social responsibility, I offer a limited number of sliding-scale places based on genuine financial need. I'm happy to discuss your circumstances individually by phone or email.

The word ‘therapy’ meant [in Greek] ‘waiting upon’, and a therapist was a servant. I have always liked the idea of a psychotherapist ‘waiting’.
Carol Jeffrey, That Why Child, 1996, p. 1.