Trauma Psychotherapist — Online Therapy & Retreats
Many women arrive having already done a great deal of thinking, reading, and reflecting.
They understand their story — and yet their body continues to respond as if something remains unfinished.
This is not because anything is wrong.
It is the nervous system doing what it was shaped to do under conditions of overwhelm, prolonged stress, or experiences that could not be fully processed at the time.
I work with women across a range of experiences — from complex trauma and acute crisis to those who have already done significant inner work but recognise that something is still held in the body, unresolved.
The work is not about understanding more.
It is about resolution.
The women I work with do not simply leave with insight.
They leave with increased regulation, clarity, and capacity — because the underlying signal has settled.
Relational Completion Therapy
A clinical approach to resolving trauma through the completion of interrupted survival responses.
“The one-to-one work Tess did with me was like nothing I had ever experienced.”
— Mary, Ireland
Tess Hunneybell
Trauma Psychotherapist
Before I was a trauma psychotherapist, I was someone who built things — six houses across four countries, a treehouse resort in Dominica, a posada in Mexico, a grief garden for Ukrainian refugees in the UK.
I have fostered seven children. I have worked on the streets of Senegal for five years. I cook and host personally at every retreat.
My clinical work is grounded in Relational Completion Therapy — the understanding that trauma is not only what happened, but what could not complete at the time.
This breadth of lived and professional experience is not background detail. It is the foundation of the work.
Read more about Tess → https://tesshunneybell.com/about-tess-hunneybell/
As a trauma psychotherapist working internationally, I support women whose bodies are still holding what the mind has already tried to process.
Psychotherapy
I work with adults carrying complex trauma, sustained stress, grief, and the effects of major life transitions. My practice includes women at the beginning of recovery and those who have already done years of therapeutic work and are ready to go further.
Rather than centring labels or diagnoses, my work meets the whole person. The focus is on creating the internal conditions for measurable change — not understanding alone, but the nervous-system shifts that make different ways of living genuinely possible.
I offer individual psychotherapy for adults who want steady, senior-level support over time: a contained, relational therapeutic space with a practitioner experienced in high-complexity work.
How the Work Is Offered
Relational Completion Therapy is offered in two formats, depending on what is needed and what is possible.
Online Therapy
For those who want to engage in this work over time, I offer one-to-one sessions online.
This allows for steady, contained work, with space between sessions for integration.
Residential Retreats
For those who are able to step out of daily life, I offer small, clinically held retreats in Umbria.
These provide continuity, depth, and the conditions for more sustained completion work.
Both formats are grounded in the same clinical approach.
The approach is the same. The depth of work is shaped by the setting.
THE RETREAT
San Flaviano — Immersive Therapeutic Retreat Work in Italy
For those ready for focused, immersive therapeutic work, I offer small-group retreats at San Flaviano — the private 15th-century monastery I restored and live in, set in the quiet hills of rural Umbria.
Retreats are limited to five women. The environment is discreet, relational, and clinically contained, allowing for sustained therapeutic presence and a level of nervous-system settling that weekly formats rarely make possible.
The days combine psychotherapy, somatic work, structured rest, and carefully paced time for integration. The setting is not incidental. Light, silence, and unhurried rhythms form part of the clinical design.
Over fifteen years, more than 1,200 women have attended this work in person.
Most arrive not out of curiosity, but because they are ready.
BOOK A CALL
You may already understand your patterns.
You may have done years of work.
But if something in you still feels active — still held — that is not something to think your way out of.
It is something the body is still trying to complete.
This is the work.
Relational Completion Therapy
A clinical approach to resolving trauma through the completion of interrupted survival responses.
If this resonates, book a short call.
OTHER WAYS OF WORKING
Workshops and professional work
Alongside individual psychotherapy and retreat work, I design and deliver workshops, professional teaching, and psychologically informed consultancy.
Born Free — Women’s Workshops
A trauma-informed workshop series exploring how trauma, conditioning, and inherited patterns become held in the body — and how they can begin to release without force, shame, or re-traumatisation. Educational, experiential, vibrant and carefully paced.
Authentic Success — Leadership & Professional Work
Psychologically informed support for individuals in complex professional roles or periods of transition. The work focuses on restoring internal authority, ethical decision-making, and sustainable leadership, grounded in nervous-system understanding rather than performance pressure.
“Thank you for an incredible day, Tess. The techniques you taught us are already making a real difference.”
— Virgita, Lithuania