Dr Caroline Douglas Pennant works with couples, adults, and teenagers, with a particular interest in helping people understand and change the emotional and relational patterns that are affecting their wellbeing. At Hampstead Psychology, she offers couples therapy for partners experiencing communication difficulties, repeated conflict, emotional distance, trust issues, parenting pressures, life transitions, or the impact of stress, anxiety, low mood, or trauma on their relationship. She also works with individuals experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, and relationship difficulties.

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Caroline is a highly experienced Counselling Psychologist who has worked and studied in the field of mental health for over 20 years. She completed her Doctorate in Counselling Psychology and went on to undertake a post-doctoral Master’s degree in Systemic Therapy, giving her advanced expertise in understanding relationships, family dynamics, communication patterns, and the wider contexts in which emotional difficulties develop. This systemic training is especially relevant to her work with couples, where therapy often focuses on the patterns between partners rather than locating the difficulty within one person.

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Alongside her private practice, Caroline holds a senior role as a Principal Psychologist within NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. In this role, she supports young people, parents, and families with a wide range of emotional and psychological difficulties. This gives her a sophisticated understanding of how relationships are shaped by family life, developmental history, parenting pressures, attachment, trauma, stress, and changing life circumstances.

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Caroline’s therapeutic work is informed by a range of evidence-based psychological approaches, including systemic therapy, couples counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, compassion-focused therapy, EMDR, family therapy, behavioural activation, exposure and response prevention, narrative exposure therapy, solution-focused therapy, and reminiscence therapy. She is also trained in Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing and has significant experience supporting clients affected by single-incident and developmental trauma.

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Caroline’s style is calm, thoughtful, structured, and practical. In couples work, she offers a discreet and carefully focused approach, helping partners clarify what they want to change, understand the cycles keeping them stuck, and develop more effective ways of communicating, repairing, and responding to one another. She brings warmth, clarity, and clinical depth to the therapeutic process, supporting clients to strengthen emotional resilience, improve their relationships, and make changes they can apply beyond the therapy room.