Silvia Bueno
Transpersonal Psychotherapist & Integrative Psychotherapist
I specialise in:
About me
I am an Integrative Psychosynthesis therapist based in Hampstead, London and the Sitges area of Spain, working with individuals in English and Brazilian Portuguese — in person and online worldwide.
My work is rooted in Psychosynthesis, a holistic and humanistic psychology developed by the Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli. Unlike approaches that focus primarily on symptoms or behaviour, Psychosynthesis works with the whole person — your inner life, your relationships, your sense of meaning, and the larger arc of who you are becoming. It is a psychology of depth, but also of possibility.
I qualified as an Integrative Therapist in 2016 and completed my Master’s degree in Psychosynthesis Psychology at the Institute of Psychosynthesis in London, graduating with Merit in 2025. I am a registered member of the BACP (397837) and have over a decade of experience supporting individuals through some of life’s most demanding passages.
What I work with
I have particular experience in grief and loss, addiction and recovery, life transitions, identity, relationship difficulties, anxiety, depression, and existential crisis — those moments when the life you have been living no longer fits, and the life you want is not yet visible.
I also work with people navigating the specific complexity of living between cultures: expats, internationally mobile individuals, and those whose sense of home has never been simple. I understand this terrain both professionally and personally.
I offer affirming, non-judgmental space for LGBTQ+ individuals, and welcome those for whom finding a therapist who genuinely sees them — without assumption or agenda — has not always been easy.
How I work
Therapy with me is collaborative and exploratory. I do not arrive with a fixed map of who you are or what you need. Instead, we work together to understand your experience from the inside — the patterns that repeat, the parts of yourself that feel at odds, the grief or longing or confusion that has brought you here.
I draw on a range of approaches within an integrative Psychosynthesis framework, including somatic awareness, imagery, and the relational dimension of the therapeutic relationship itself. I work at depth, but with warmth. Sessions are not performances — they are conversations, sometimes difficult, often surprising, always held with care.
My own journey
I came to therapy through my own experience of loss and recovery. In my twenties I encountered grief that changed the direction of my life — and eventually led me, through a long and winding path, to this work. That path included years in addiction recovery, spiritual study in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest and in India, and ultimately the formal training that gave language and structure to what I had already been living.
Originally from Brazil, I have lived in the UK for thirty years. I carry both cultures with me — their different relationships to emotion, community, time, and the body — and find that this duality has made me a more attentive and flexible therapist. I know what it is to feel at home nowhere and everywhere at once.
I have also written about my experience — I am the author of a published memoir, and have written academically on Psychosynthesis, somatic integration, and addiction. Writing and therapy share the same core impulse for me: the attempt to make meaning from experience.
What to expect
If you are considering reaching out, you do not need to have the right words or a clear sense of what you need. Most people arrive uncertain. What matters is that something has shifted — a restlessness, a weight, a sense that things could be different — and that you are willing to explore it.
I offer a free initial consultation so that we can meet, talk briefly about what has brought you here, and see whether working together feels right. There is no obligation.
Sessions are 50 minutes and take place in a private consulting room in Hampstead, London, or in the Sitges area of Catalonia, Spain. Online sessions are available worldwide.
I work with adults only.
Qualifications
• MA Psychosynthesis Psychology (with Merit), Institute of Psychosynthesis London, 2025 • Integrative Therapist, qualified 2016 • BA Linguistics and French, 2013 • BACP Registered Member (MBACP 397837) • Specialist training in bereavement, depression, anxiety and addiction • Fluent in English and Brazilian PortugueseI speak:
Location:
Approach
My approach is integrative, which means I do not work from a single fixed method but draw on a range of psychological traditions, held together within a Psychosynthesis framework. What this looks like in practice depends on you — your history, your temperament, what you are carrying, and what you are reaching towards.
Psychosynthesis as a foundation
Psychosynthesis was developed by the Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli in the early twentieth century as a response to what he saw as the limitations of psychoanalysis. Where Freud focused primarily on the unconscious as a source of conflict and pathology, Assagioli was equally interested in what he called the superconscious — the realm of meaning, purpose, creativity, and what he termed the Self: the deeper centre of identity that exists beneath our roles, defences, and conditioned patterns.
In practice, this means that our work together is not only concerned with what has gone wrong or where you are stuck. It is also concerned with who you are when you are most fully yourself — and how to live from that place more consistently.
Working with the whole person
I work with mind, body, emotions, and spirit as an integrated whole. This is not a metaphor — it is a practical orientation. Emotion lives in the body. Thought shapes feeling. The stories we tell about ourselves have physical weight. In sessions, I pay attention to all of these dimensions, not just the verbal narrative.
This might mean noticing what happens in your body as you speak. It might mean working with imagery or metaphor when words feel insufficient. It might mean slowing down to sit with something that usually gets bypassed. I follow your lead, but I also bring my own attention — to what is said and to what is not.
The relational dimension
The therapeutic relationship is not just a container for the work — it is part of the work itself. How we relate to each other in the room often mirrors how you relate to others outside it. Patterns of trust, withdrawal, expectation, and disappointment show up between us, and working with those patterns directly — with honesty and care — can be one of the most powerful aspects of therapy.
I aim to be a genuine presence in the room, not a neutral screen. That means I will sometimes reflect back what I notice, offer a perspective, or gently challenge something that seems to be keeping you stuck. Always with respect for your autonomy and pace.
Grief, loss and recovery
A significant part of my work is with people navigating grief — not only bereavement, but the many forms of loss that do not always get named as such: the end of a relationship, the loss of a version of yourself, the grief of a life unlived. I bring both clinical training and personal experience to this area, and I do not rush it.
I also have extensive experience working with addiction and recovery — including the particular psychological terrain of early recovery, relapse, and the long work of building a life that does not depend on numbing or escape.
Transition and identity
Many of the people I work with are in motion — between countries, between life chapters, between versions of themselves. Transition is not just logistical; it is psychological. It disrupts identity, relationships, and the structures we rely on to feel safe. I find this territory genuinely interesting, and I bring curiosity as well as steadiness to it.
This includes working with expats and internationally mobile individuals, people navigating cultural duality, and LGBTQ+ individuals for whom questions of identity and belonging have particular depth and complexity.
What sessions are like
Sessions are 60 minutes. They are conversational in structure but not casual — there is a quality of attention and intention that distinguishes them from ordinary conversation. I do not follow a script or assign homework. I trust the process of sustained, honest inquiry to do its work.
Some sessions feel immediately clarifying. Others are slower, more oblique — and sometimes those are the ones that matter most. I work at depth, which means I am less interested in quick relief than in genuine and lasting change. That said, I am also practical: if something is urgent, we address it.
I offer a free initial consultation for us to meet, discuss what has brought you here, and see whether working together feels right.
Languages
I work in English and Brazilian Portuguese. For Portuguese-speaking clients, sessions can be conducted entirely in Portuguese — which for many people makes a profound difference to the depth and ease of the work.
