Sara Neves
Clinical Psychologist
I specialise in:
About me
I am a Clinical Psychologist trained at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Lisbon, with a specialization in Cognitive-Behavioral and Integrative Psychotherapy. From early in my training, I developed an integrative approach grounded in the understanding that each person’s experience is unique and requires a flexible, individualized therapeutic response.
I currently work with adults and young adults, with a particular focus on trauma, grief and loss, existential crises, and experiential work. My practice integrates cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, existential, and experiential therapies, combining conceptual depth with practical tools tailored to each client’s needs.
I see psychotherapy as a collaborative and safe space where painful experiences can be processed, meaning can be reconstructed, and emotional patterns can be transformed, fostering greater integration, resilience, and authenticity.
I speak:
Location:
Approach
My therapeutic style is integrative, experiential, and emotion-focused at its core. I primarily work from an Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) perspective, seeking to access and work through the primary emotions underlying psychological suffering. I believe that many symptoms—particularly in trauma and grief—are rooted in unprocessed emotional experiences. By helping clients safely access, process, regulate, and transform these core emotions, meaningful and lasting change becomes possible.
In working with trauma and loss, I focus on facilitating emotional processing in a way that allows unmet needs to be recognized and symbolically fulfilled, supporting integration rather than avoidance. I aim to create a therapeutic space that feels safe, attuned, and collaborative, where difficult experiences can be approached with compassion and depth.
I also draw on models of self-multiplicity, including Internal Family Systems (IFS), to understand inner conflicts and protective dynamics. This framework helps clients relate differently to parts of themselves that carry pain, fear, or self-criticism. In addition, I integrate relational and psychodynamic perspectives to identify maladaptive interpersonal patterns and support their transformation.
Cognitive-behavioral techniques are incorporated when helpful, particularly to consolidate emotional change into concrete, reparative actions in daily life. More recently, I have been deepening my study of existential psychotherapy to better address themes such as meaning, freedom, responsibility, isolation, and mortality—dimensions that often emerge in trauma, grief, and existential crises.
Overall, I view therapy as a process of emotional integration, relational repair, and existential meaning-making.
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