UKCP Psychotherapist · Therapeutic Coach
Sabbir Ahmed is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist (Reg. No. 2011164676) and an EMCC-accredited therapeutic coach in London. Confidence coaching is in person at 96 Harley Street (W1G 7HY) and 335 City Road (EC1V 1LJ), and by secure video across the UK. The first step is a free 20-minute consultation. This is planned support, not crisis care.
We work on where the self-doubt started, so the confidence you build actually holds.
Years of experience
On the outside, you look like you have it together. Capable, reliable, handling things. Inside, it can be a different story: a loop of second-guessing, over-preparing and waiting to be found out.
You’ve probably tried the affirmations, the power poses, the fake-it-till-you-make-it advice. The lift never lasts, because the problem was never a shortage of positive thinking. Somewhere along the way you learned to distrust yourself, and surface-level tips can’t undo that.
Now picture walking into a room without rehearsing what you’ll say. Setting a boundary without the guilt spiral. Backing your own judgement even when someone senior disagrees. That isn’t arrogance. That’s what confidence feels like when it’s built from the inside out.
I trained as a psychotherapist before I coached. CBT, DBT, analytic and systemic work, applied to confidence rather than read about.
We work on where the doubt started, not just on how to hide it, so the change holds when life gets loud.
Your job, family and commitments are the raw material. No abstract frameworks, no homework that ignores your week.
If you’re ADHD, autistic or wondering, the work adapts to how your mind actually runs. I’ve written a separate guide to confidence coaching for neurodivergent professionals.
Your background, faith and family context are part of the work, never obstacles to it. Non-judgemental as standard.
Clear goals, one to three actions a session, and progress you can measure. Momentum you can see, not just a lift you can feel.
You don’t need a diagnosis, a label or the right words. Send a couple of lines about what’s going on, and we’ll work out together whether this is the right fit.
Psychological insight plus practical coaching, so your thinking and your behaviour shift together. Most people bring some mix of these six.
Map the voice, learn where it got its script, and build self-talk that’s kinder and more accurate.
Small, repeatable acts of bravery that compound into confidence. No deep-end heroics required.
Sharing ideas before they’re perfect, asking for what you need, and staying steady when attention lands on you.
Saying no cleanly, holding it calmly, and letting go of the over-explaining.
Loosening the standards that keep you rehearsing, delaying and apologising for taking up space.
Five to seven minutes to anchor your day and track wins, so progress stays visible between sessions.
Clients commonly report clearer self-talk, more ease speaking up, stronger boundaries with less guilt, and steadier follow-through on the goals that matter to them.
We map where the doubt shows up, what triggers it and what it has cost you so far. Values and strengths work gives us a picture of what matters, not just what’s wrong.
Drawing on CBT, DBT and analytic training, we build kinder self-talk, scripts for hard conversations and small experiments that fit your actual week.
You practise between sessions and we review what happened. Confidence starts to rest on things you’ve actually done, and we finish with a plan you can run without me.
Clear fees for confidence coaching, with a free 20-minute initial consultation.
Session Starting from
£350
NHS-trained · King's College London
I know what it’s like to feel stuck, doubted and unsure whether things will ever change.
I arrived in the UK as an immigrant, working days and evenings to pay for my psychotherapy training. When my son was diagnosed with autism and excluded from more than one school, we were told to lower our expectations. We didn’t. Watching him build a life everyone said was out of reach taught me more about confidence than any qualification.
That experience sits underneath how I coach. I’ve spent over 20 years across NHS, private and community practice, trained at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, and studied CBT at King’s College London. You get a psychotherapist’s understanding of where doubt comes from, with a coach’s focus on what you’ll do about it this week.
Questions people ask before their first confidence coaching session.
Structured one-to-one sessions focused on how self-doubt works in your life and what changes it. We map where the doubt comes from, then build practical tools: kinder self-talk, scripts for hard conversations, and small experiments between sessions. You leave each session with one to three specific actions, so confidence grows from what you’ve actually done rather than from positive thinking.
Coaching is forward-facing and practical: goals, skills and steady behaviour change. Therapy works at greater depth with mental health, trauma and the past. I’m trained in both, so if what sits underneath your confidence needs clinical work I’ll say so, and we can start there instead. The initial consultation is where we work that out together.
Because confidence is built by doing, then noticing what happened. Self-doubt usually jumps in before you act, so you never collect the evidence that you’re capable. We work on quieting the doubt enough to take small steps, then let the results do the convincing. Affirmations on their own don’t hold because they add no evidence.
Most people notice small shifts within the first few sessions. Durable change usually takes three to six months of steady practice, depending on your goals and how much life is asking of you. We review progress openly as we go, and the aim is always to finish with a system you can run without me.
We take stock: what’s going on, where confidence dips hardest, what you’ve already tried and what you want to be different. I don’t just listen and nod. I’ll challenge you gently, offer a different perspective when it’s useful, and make sure you leave with something concrete to try. Before any of that, the free 20-minute initial consultation checks we’re the right fit, so the first session is never a leap.
Yes. Speaking in meetings, presenting, interviews, asking for a rise, pushing back on a workload: these are the most common situations people bring. We rehearse the real conversations you’re facing and build the skills inside the situations that matter, rather than in the abstract.
No. I work privately rather than through insurance panels. You pay directly for each session or block, which keeps the work confidential and free of diagnosis-led restrictions.
If you’re in crisis right now, call Samaritans free, 24/7, on 116 123, or call 999 in an emergency. This is planned support, not crisis care. Once things are steadier, coaching or therapy can help you rebuild at your own pace.
Choose the format that works best for you. I offer confidence coaching face-to-face at my City Road and Harley Street practices, alongside secure online sessions for clients across the UK.
Harley Street: 96 Harley Street, London W1G 7HY
London City Road: 335 City Rd, London EC1V 1LJ (Angel)
Online: Secure video sessions UK-wide and globally
Book your initial consultation today and take the first step towards clarity, confidence and lasting change.
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