English-Speaking Therapist in Manila.

The work

The work I do is relational and focused on pattern. I don't run intake checklists. I don't assign homework. I pay attention to what happens in the session. The moments when something shifts or goes flat. The pattern that keeps showing up underneath the problem. Most people already know their own story. They still keep landing in the same place. What's missing is someone watching in real time, someone who can name what you cannot see from inside it. More on how I work, and how I work with couples.

Why people in Manila pick online work with me

Manila is not short on English. It is short on three other things. Depth, first. Much of the market runs on short courses and coping tools. People who want long-form pattern work have a thin list to call. Privacy, second. Therapy here often routes through a company HMO or a hospital your industry knows, and the city's work circles are smaller than the city. I sit outside all of it. Nothing billed to PhilHealth or an HMO, nothing in any local file. Training, third. My work is US-trained depth therapy, the long tradition, not a scripted program. If you need medication or testing, Manila has strong psychiatrists, and I will point you to them on the free call.

What people bring to online therapy

The people I work with in English come for a wide range of reasons: anxiety, depression, stress and burnout, anger management, grief and loss, relationship difficulties, loneliness, self-esteem issues, procrastination, sleep problems, attachment patterns, self-sabotage, perfectionism, identity questions, and existential concerns. Online counseling makes this work possible from wherever you are, whether you need an English-speaking therapist, a virtual counselor, or simply someone who can work in your language at a depth that matters.

How it works

Sessions are online via secure video call. I work with individuals and couples (60 minutes). Before your first session, we have a free 15-minute call to see if this feels like the right fit for you.

The Manila patterns

The city runs its people hard. Executives in Makati and BGC doing regional jobs on Manila hours plus everyone else's. Development and agency staff in the ADB orbit, fluent in six acronyms and tired in all of them. Expats on packages learning that the compound and the driver solved logistics and nothing else. Balikbayans home after decades in the States, local and foreign in the same breath. Couples where one family is here, enormous, and involved, and the other is a video call away. And under it all, the traffic math. When the commute eats three hours, a therapist across town is a project. One across the world is a tab. None of this needs explaining to me first. That is the point.

Therapy in Manila: covered on paper, private in practice

The Mental Health Act of 2018 put mental health into law. PhilHealth now runs an outpatient package: 9,000 pesos a year for general care, 16,000 for specialist care, at accredited sites. Real progress, modest math. Private sessions in Metro Manila commonly run 1,500 to 5,000 pesos, so the package covers a handful. Company HMOs vary widely. Many cap or exclude mental health, and claims run through plans your employer holds.

The deeper limit is people. The country has a few hundred psychiatrists for well over a hundred million citizens. The private practices Manila trusts carry waits. So most steady therapy here is already private and out of pocket. Mine simply stays that way on purpose. Outside PhilHealth, outside the HMOs, outside the local file. For prescriptions or testing you would see a Philippine-licensed clinician. Good ones exist here.

Questions people ask from Manila