Inclusive, evidence-based therapy to help you understand what has shaped your sense of self and develop greater freedom to live in ways that reflect what matters to you.
Who are you when you’re not being who somebody else needs you to be? That can be a surprisingly difficult question.
You may have spent years being the responsible one, the caregiver, the successful one, the peacekeeper or the person everybody relies upon. Perhaps you’ve become very good at recognising what other people expect whilst finding it much harder to know what you want, need or value.
For some people, questions about identity emerge following change: a relationship ending, becoming a parent, bereavement, changing career, migration, recognising neurodivergence or exploring gender or sexuality.
For others, the uncertainty has been there for much longer: “I don’t really know who I am.” “I become whoever I’m around.” “I’ve spent so long doing what I’m supposed to do that I don’t know what I actually want.”
But therapy doesn’t need to involve searching for one hidden, authentic version of you underneath everything else.
Our sense of self develops through relationships, experiences, values, culture, family, gender, sexuality, neurodivergence, communities and the wider environments we live within. Some aspects may feel stable. Others may evolve. Some may remain complicated.
Change doesn’t necessarily mean you were previously inauthentic. Contradiction doesn’t mean you haven’t worked yourself out. Therapy can provide space to understand what has shaped you whilst developing greater choice about how you want to live now.
Understanding Identity & Sense of Self
Identity isn’t something we develop separately from the world around us. From early in life, we receive messages, explicitly and implicitly, about what is valued, expected, accepted and possible. Family matters. Culture matters. Relationships and communities matter. Gender, sexuality, neurodivergence and experiences of belonging or exclusion can matter.
And we naturally adapt. You might behave differently with your closest friend than you do at work. You may choose which aspects of yourself feel appropriate or safe to share in different environments. You might communicate differently across cultures, relationships or situations. That doesn’t automatically mean one version is real and another is fake. Human beings are contextual.
Difficulties can arise, however, when adapting becomes so dominant that your own preferences, needs, boundaries or values become increasingly difficult to recognise. You might find yourself wondering:
Identity can also contain apparent contradictions. You can value independence and connection. Love your family whilst disagreeing with some expectations. Feel deeply connected with your culture whilst questioning particular aspects of it. Value parts of your neurodivergence whilst also finding some experiences genuinely difficult. Want stability whilst continuing to change. A stronger sense of self doesn’t necessarily require resolving all of those tensions. Sometimes it means becoming more able to hold them.
How Difficulties With Identity & Sense of Self Can Affect Everyday Life
Feeling uncertain or disconnected from yourself can influence relationships, decisions, boundaries and how freely you participate in life. You might notice:
- Feeling unsure who you are outside particular roles or relationships.
- Knowing what other people want more easily than knowing what you want.
- Adapting significantly depending on who you’re with.
- Difficulty recognising your own needs or preferences.
- Feeling caught between personal, family, cultural or community expectations.
- Making decisions according to what you “should” want rather than what matters to you.
- Questioning how masking or people-pleasing fits within your sense of self.
- Feeling pressure to hide, explain or justify parts of yourself.
- Losing your sense of self within relationships.
- Feeling disconnected after a major life transition.
- Struggling when a role that previously defined you changes or ends.
- Feeling that different parts of yourself don’t fit neatly together.
- Comparing yourself with people who appear more certain about who they are.
- Repeatedly analysing thoughts, feelings or memories to determine what they mean about you.
- Waiting to feel certain about yourself before making meaningful choices.
For neurodivergent people, questions about identity can sometimes become particularly prominent following later recognition of autism or ADHD. Looking backwards with new information can change how previous experiences make sense. You may begin wondering which behaviours were masking, which expectations genuinely fit you and what you might want to approach differently now. There doesn’t have to be an immediate answer. New understanding can change the way you interpret your story without requiring you to rewrite everything that came before it.
What Can Make Identity Feel Difficult to Navigate?
This isn’t everybody’s cycle. Adapting isn’t inherently unhealthy. Masking may be protective. Caring for others may genuinely reflect your values. Cultural or family interdependence isn’t something therapy should automatically reinterpret as poor boundaries.
The question is whether you have enough choice. Can you recognise when you’re adapting? Do you know what matters to you alongside what matters to others? Can different parts of you exist without needing one to be declared the “real” version? And importantly, does your environment actually allow those parts of you to be expressed safely?
Sometimes the difficulty isn’t that somebody doesn’t know who they are. It’s that there hasn’t been enough room for them to be who they already know themselves to be.
When Identity Questions Become Caught in OCD
Questions about identity are normal. But sometimes the process around those questions changes. You may find yourself repeatedly analysing: “What did that thought mean?” “Did that feeling prove something?” “Was my reaction genuine?” “What does this memory say about who I am?” Questions involving sexuality, gender, morality, relationships, attraction or other personally meaningful aspects of identity can become caught within OCD cycles of checking, testing, researching, reviewing and reassurance-seeking.
The distinction isn’t necessarily whether the identity question is “real” or “OCD”. Trying to establish that with certainty can itself become another question to solve. Instead, therapy looks at what happens around uncertainty. Are you exploring because you’re curious? Or have you reached a point where you feel unable to move forward until you’ve established exactly what a thought, feeling or experience proves?
Therapy can make room for genuine identity exploration without becoming another place where certainty has to be obtained.
How Therapy Can Help
Therapy begins by developing a shared understanding of what has shaped your sense of self, where you feel most able to be yourself and where you would like greater choice or freedom. Together, we’ll consider the relationships, experiences, values, cultures, communities and wider contexts that have shaped how you understand yourself, alongside the roles and adaptations you have developed over time.
Depending on your individual formulation, we may draw from Schema Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Integrative Psychotherapy and, where relevant, EMDR. We might explore values, boundaries, attachment patterns, shame, self-criticism, masking or the beliefs you’ve developed about what you need to be in order to belong.
Therapy will remain LGBTQIA+ inclusive, culturally sensitive and neurodivergent-affirming. This means not assuming that independence is always preferable to interdependence, that unmasking is always the goal, or that distress associated with a marginalised identity means the identity itself needs changing.
Where identity questions have become entangled with OCD, our approach changes accordingly. Rather than analysing thoughts, memories, feelings or bodily responses to establish what they prove about you, we’ll focus on the cycle of doubt and certainty-seeking itself. The aim isn’t to discover one perfectly consistent “true self”. It’s to develop greater freedom to know what matters to you and make choices that reflect it, whilst leaving room for complexity, context and change.
Common Misconceptions About Identity & Sense of Self
“I should know who I am by now.”
There isn’t an age by which identity becomes complete. Our understanding of ourselves can continue changing through relationships, experiences, loss, parenthood, culture, discovering neurodivergence, exploring gender or sexuality and simply living more of our lives. Change doesn’t mean you previously got yourself wrong.
“There must be one authentic version of me underneath everything else.”
We naturally express different aspects of ourselves across different relationships and environments. This doesn’t necessarily make one version genuine and another false. A healthy sense of self can be flexible, contextual and multifaceted.
“If I adapt around other people, I’m being fake.”
Adaptation is part of human relationships and can also serve important protective functions. The question isn’t whether you ever adapt, but whether you have enough freedom to recognise and express your own needs, values and preferences when it matters.
“Being psychologically healthy means becoming more independent.”
Not necessarily. Western ideas of wellbeing can sometimes place considerable emphasis on individual independence, but connection, family, community and interdependence are deeply important within many cultures and for many individuals. Therapy should help you understand your values, rather than impose somebody else’s.
“Unmasking means discovering the real neurodivergent me.”
For some people, reducing masking can feel freeing, but masking is complex and may be protective, automatic or context-dependent. Therapy doesn’t need to divide everything into “masked” and “authentic.” Instead, we can explore what different adaptations mean to you and where you would like greater choice.
“I need to be completely certain about my identity before I can move forward.”
Identity doesn’t always come with complete certainty, and repeatedly trying to obtain certainty can sometimes make doubt more consuming, particularly when OCD is involved. Therapy can help you distinguish exploration from compulsive attempts to resolve uncertainty and support you in living meaningfully without requiring every question about yourself to be settled first.
Food For Thought
Perhaps the question isn’t always “Who am I, really?” Sometimes a more useful question is: “What matters to me, and how do I want to live alongside everything that makes me who I am?”
A Note from Agi
I think we’re often given the impression that somewhere underneath all the expectations, roles and adaptations there is one perfectly authentic version of ourselves waiting to be uncovered. I’m not sure people are quite that simple. We’re shaped by relationships, culture, communities, experiences, identities and the environments we’ve moved through. Different parts of us may become more visible in different places.
That doesn’t necessarily make any of them less real. So when somebody tells me: “I don’t know who I am anymore,” I’m not immediately looking for the answer. I’m interested in what happened to make that question important. Perhaps you’ve spent years accommodating other people. Maybe a relationship or role that previously organised your life has changed. Perhaps recognising neurodivergence has made you reinterpret experiences you thought you understood. Or perhaps you’re simply changing.
Therapy can make room for that without rushing towards another label or definitive explanation. For me, developing a stronger sense of self isn’t necessarily about finally being able to say: “This is exactly who I am.” Sometimes it’s being able to say: “This matters to me. This doesn’t work for me. I’m still figuring some things out. And I can live my life while I do.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to be having an “identity crisis” for therapy to help?
No. You might have a fairly clear sense of yourself but notice difficulties around particular roles, relationships, values or expectations. Others feel disconnected from their own needs or uncertain about who they are outside what they do for other people. Therapy can begin wherever you are.
Is it normal for my sense of identity to change?
Yes. Our sense of identity can continue to evolve throughout life as our experiences, relationships, roles, circumstances and understanding of ourselves change.
Sometimes this happens gradually; at other times, significant life events or new ways of understanding ourselves can prompt us to reconsider things we previously felt certain about.
Change doesn’t mean your previous understanding of yourself was false or inauthentic. It reflected who you were, what you knew and the context of your life at that time. Developing a different understanding now can simply be part of continuing to grow, learn and make sense of yourself.
Can therapy help me explore my gender or sexuality?
Yes. Therapy can provide an LGBTQIA+ inclusive space to explore experiences relating to gender, sexuality, relationships, belonging or identity without assuming what conclusion you should reach. Therapy isn’t about changing or correcting an LGBTQIA+ identity.
What if I’m not sure whether my identity questions are genuine or OCD?
Trying to establish with certainty whether a question is “genuine” or “OCD” can itself sometimes become part of an OCD cycle. Rather than giving you reassurance about which it is, we can explore how you are responding to the uncertainty, including checking, analysing, testing, researching or seeking reassurance, and help you relate to those questions differently.
Can culture and family expectations be part of therapy?
Absolutely. Your values don’t exist separately from your cultural, familial or community context. Therapy can explore tensions between different expectations without automatically assuming that separating from family or prioritising individualism is the healthiest outcome.
What if I’m questioning who I am after discovering I’m neurodivergent?
Later recognition of autism or ADHD can lead people to reinterpret many previous experiences. You may also have questions about masking, needs, relationships and which expectations genuinely work for you. Therapy can make space for that process without requiring you to determine which behaviours represent the “real you.”
Do I have to unmask in therapy?
Yes. CBT, ERP and I-CBT can all be delivered effectiveNo. You won’t be pressured to unmask. We can explore what masking means for you, when it feels useful or protective, what it costs and whether there are circumstances where you would like more choice about how much you adapt.
Can therapy be delivered online?
Yes. Many psychological therapies can be delivered effectively online, depending on the individual and the type of therapy being offered.
I provide online therapy across the UK, as well as working internationally where appropriate and where professional and regulatory requirements allow. For people who prefer face-to-face therapy, I offer in-person appointments in Menai Bridge, Anglesey and Llandudno, Conwy, North Wales.
During the initial assessment, we can consider whether online or in-person therapy is the best fit and discuss any practical or clinical factors that may influence how therapy is delivered.
How Do We Start?
If you’re feeling disconnected from yourself, caught between different expectations or simply wanting space to understand yourself more deeply, you’re welcome to book a free 15-minute discovery call.
You don’t need to arrive knowing exactly what the problem is, or who you are.
We’ll begin by exploring what has shaped your sense of self, where you feel most able to express yourself and where you would like greater choice. This might include relationships, culture, family, gender, sexuality, neurodivergence, masking, values or the different roles you occupy.
Where OCD is relevant, we won’t use therapy to establish certainty about what particular thoughts or feelings prove about your identity. Instead, we’ll work with the process that makes those answers feel so urgent whilst leaving room for genuine exploration.
From there, we’ll develop a shared formulation and consider which therapeutic approach is most appropriate.
You don’t need to have yourself completely figured out before you can begin making choices about how you want to live.
If You Only Take One Thing Away…
You don’t have to reduce yourself to one fixed, perfectly consistent version of who you are. Identity can hold history, culture, relationships, contradictions, change and uncertainty, and still leave room for you to choose how you want to live.