I am a couple and individual psychodynamic counsellor and psychotherapist working with adults of all ages and backgrounds. I have a particular interest in working with intercultural and interracial couples, and with the ways in which culture, identity, family and belonging enter intimate relationships.
My approach is grounded in psychodynamic thinking, while also paying close attention to what is happening in the present, within you, and between you. Earlier experiences can help us understand why certain patterns have developed, but understanding is not the end point. Therapy can also help you recognise those patterns as they unfold and find greater freedom in how you respond.
I am of Armenian and Danish heritage and have lived and worked across different cultural environments. Alongside my clinical work and research, this has shaped my particular interest in how cultural difference is experienced within intimate relationships. I attend both to the visible cultural expectations surrounding a couple and to the deeper, often unconscious narratives each person carries from early life. This can help us understand how external and internal worlds meet within a relationship, and create space for new ways of relating.
My work is psychodynamic at its foundation, relational and active in its practice. I am attentive to attachment, culture and the wider systems surrounding the couple, and interested in understanding the past in order to create greater freedom in the present.
I trained at Tavistock Relationships, where I currently work as a Visiting Clinician and Tutor on the Psychodynamic Master’s programme (MSc).
I offer therapy in English and can support inter-lingual work involving Armenian, Greek and Italian. For some people, feelings connected with early experience may become more accessible when they can be held within a familiar language or cultural frame.
I am an accredited member of the BACP, work in accordance with its Ethical Framework, and undertake regular clinical supervision and ongoing professional development.
I have also been involved in a European-led research project on intercultural couples in collaboration with the London Intercultural Couples Centre and the University of Bergamo.
I trained at Tavistock Relationships in London, where I currently work as a Visiting Clinician and Tutor on the Psychodynamic Master’s programme (MSc).
I hold a BSc in Social Psychology with Philosophy, a Certificate of Higher Education in Counselling, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Couple and Individual Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy, accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)
I am an accredited member of the BACP and a Graduate Member of the Tavistock Relationships Association of Psychotherapists and Counsellors. I work in accordance with the BACP Ethical Framework and undertake regular clinical supervision. My continuing professional development includes a 25-hour programme in Anti-Oppressive Practice with Black Psychotherapy, as well as specialist workshops and training in couple relationships and relational work.
Journal of Family Therapy
Kalaydjian, J., Lugli, V., & Singh, R. (2024). Social
GRRRAAACCCEEESSS in intercultural couple therapy: A semantic analysis.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-6427.12469
Do intercultural couples come from different semantic worlds? Report on a research study funded by the (AFT) David Campbell creative fund – Valentina Lugli, Julia Kalaydjian, Melis Aktas, Sara Lerussi and Reenee Singh. https://www.aft.org.uk/page/Context2022
Sky News Interview
Can people have real relationships with ChatGPT?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSO3bAdVr9s&t=72s
Singh, R., 2022, Do intercultural couples come from different semantic worlds?
https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/media/otzimjco/79-new-psychotherapist-winter-spring-2022.pdf
pp. 44-46.
Talking about race with the person you love is rarely easy, but it is deeply necessary. In Seeing Me, Hearing Us, this workbook offers a compassionate, reflective guide for interracial couples who want to speak more honestly about race, identity, power, and difference.
Rooted in years of clinical experience and written in a voice that is both tender and unflinching, this workbook does not offer a script or a list of rules. Instead, it invites you into conversation, with yourself, with your partner, and with the parts of your relationship shaped by silence, misunderstanding, or inherited pain.
Each chapter explores a theme that commonly arises in mixed-race relationships, from the emotional weight of unacknowledged privilege to the wounds caused by unspoken assumptions, racial microaggressions, or well-meaning but hurtful language. Through prompts and gentle practices, the book offers couples a way to begin again, with more curiosity, more honesty, and kindness.
Whether you are just starting these conversations or returning to them after moments of rupture, Seeing Me, Hearing Us is a place to pause, reflect, and reconnect. It is for couples who want to love more bravely across difference, not by avoiding discomfort, but by learning how to stay present in it, together.
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