Some of the work

A woman in her late thirties, after a divorce she described as the ground going out from under her.

What helped was not advice. It was someone steady through the weeks that were worst.

A man in his mid-thirties, who had stayed years in work that was emptying him out, too afraid to go.

What shifted was recognising the fear as noise rather than a signal. He left.

A man in his early thirties, watching a long relationship come apart and not understanding why.

It turned out not to be about love. It was about what the two of them were not saying.

A mother in her early fifties, after her son left to study abroad, in a house that had gone quiet.

The work was about who she had been before she was only somebody's mother.

A woman of twenty-nine, with everybody around her holding a view on whether she should marry.

What she wanted was to find out what she wanted.

A founder in his early forties, already running the company, unsure he had what the next part needed.

She did not tell him what to do. She reflected back what was already there.

A woman of forty-seven, who believed building something of her own belonged to people twenty years younger.

The belief was the obstacle, not the age.

A man of fifty-one, after twenty-five years of working for other people, wanting something that was his.

The work was separating the real risks from the imagined ones.