Welcome to Heather Darwall-Smith’s Sleep Clinic

Heather is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist specialising in sleep and neurodiversity. She combines personalised, evidence-based care with deep psychological insight to help you understand and overcome the challenges that keep you awake.

Working exclusively online, Heather offers flexible and accessible support tailored to your unique needs – whether you're seeking long-term psychotherapy or focused sleep coaching.

She understands how disrupted sleep can affect every part of life – and how untangling it often means looking beneath the surface.

Why sleep health matters
Body Focused

Cognitive performance

During sleep, your brain processes and organises the events of the day, consolidating memories and enhancing your ability to learn and focus. Chronic sleep deprivation disrupts these processes, making it harder to concentrate, problem-solve, and retain information. Many clients describe feeling ‘foggy’ or scattered when they’re not sleeping well – a common sign that the brain hasn’t had the chance to reset.

Sleep Clinic

Emotional resilience

Sleep is your emotional regulator, giving your brain space to process stress and emotions. When rest is insufficient, feelings of anxiety, irritability, or overwhelm can intensify. It can lead to a vicious cycle where stress feeds poor sleep, and poor sleep magnifies stress, leaving you stuck in emotional overdrive.

Psychotherapy (5)

Emotional resilience

Sleep is your emotional regulator, giving your brain space to process stress and emotions. When rest is insufficient, feelings of anxiety, irritability, or overwhelm can intensify. It can lead to a vicious cycle where stress feeds poor sleep, and poor sleep magnifies stress, leaving you stuck in emotional overdrive.

Body Focused

Long-term impact

Chronic sleep difficulties are associated with significant health risks, including depression, anxiety, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. From a therapeutic perspective, understanding how sleep ties into these conditions helps us work together to prevent or manage them, offering a path toward a healthier, more balanced life.

Signs You May Need Sleep Therapy

There are many reasons to seek help with your sleep issues that include:

Struggling to fall asleep or stay asleep consistently, leaving you restless most nights.

You are waking up feeling persistently fatigued, even after what seems like a full night's sleep.

You feel that stress or anxiety regularly disrupts your ability to rest peacefully.

You experience irregular sleep patterns that interfere with your daily routine and overall wellbeing.

Battle with night-time worries or recurring nightmares that disturb your sleep.

Seeking professional support can make a significant difference in your quality of life. If any of these challenges resonate with you, consider booking an initial consultation to receive a comprehensive assessment and a personalised plan to restore your sleep.

A Holistic & Relational Approach to Sleep Therapy

Heather brings a relational approach to sleep therapy, grounded in the belief that how you rest is closely linked to how you relate – to yourself, to others, and to the world around you. Sleep difficulties often reflect deeper patterns: stress, overwhelm, or relational dynamics that show up when everything else goes quiet.

Her focus is on working with you – not just on your sleep, but on the emotional and psychological threads that may be keeping rest out of reach. Every step is designed to meet you where you are – with care, collaboration, and insight.

Taking A Relational Approach To Improving Sleep
Heather’s Approach Integrates

Heather’s approach is designed to support meaningful, lasting change – not just quick fixes. She combines evidence-based techniques, such as mindfulness and cognitive-behavioural strategies, with trauma-informed care, somatic practices, and a deep understanding of neurodiversity.

Whether you're dealing with long-term insomnia, racing thoughts at night, or patterns that no amount of “sleep hygiene” has resolved, Heather works with you to uncover what’s really going on beneath the surface. This includes exploring how past experiences, current relationships, and nervous system regulation may all be shaping your ability to rest.

This is more than symptom relief. It’s about helping you rebuild a relationship with sleep that feels safe, supportive, and sustainable – and reconnecting with the parts of yourself that may have been left out of the picture for too long.

Areas of support at the Sleep Clinic

Heather works collaboratively with you and, when needed, other clinicians you may be seeing, to address a range of sleep-related challenges by focusing on the underlying factors and patterns contributing to disrupted sleep. While diagnoses and treatments are managed by medical colleagues, Heather provides therapeutic support for:
Insomnia: Persistent difficulties with falling or staying asleep, often linked to stress, anxiety, or situations beyond your control.
Disrupted sleep patterns including circadian rhythm disorders: Irregular sleep-wake cycles that interfere with daily life, often influenced by biological, lifestyle, or environmental factors.
Sleep deprivation: The impact of chronic insufficient rest, leading to physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and diminished wellbeing.
Night-time worry: Restlessness or anxiety at night that makes it difficult to relax and drift into restful sleep.
ADHD and sleep: Helping those with ADHD navigate challenges such as restlessness, irregular sleep patterns, and night-time hyperactivity.
Stress-related sleep difficulties: Difficulties with falling or staying asleep due to the effects of heightened stress on the mind and body.
Weight issues and sleep: Supporting individuals managing weight-related concerns—including those addressing sleep apnea—by exploring the emotional and behavioural patterns that impact sleep and overall wellbeing.

All of these areas of support are delivered through a personalized, structured approach that begins with a comprehensive two-hour initial consultation, followed by regular 50-minute sessions—available both online and in-person—to meet your unique sleep needs.

Heather specialises in uncovering the deeper emotional and psychological patterns that often lie beneath sleep difficulties. For many of her clients, this work becomes about more than just sleep – it opens the door to greater self-understanding, emotional clarity, and a renewed sense of connection with themselves.

Ready to Sleep Better? Book a Consultation with Heather Today

How you might work with Heather

Initial Consultation

psychotherapeutic sleep coaching

Your journey begins with a comprehensive two-hour consultation. This session explores your sleep history, current challenges, lifestyle patterns, and any underlying emotional or psychological factors that may be affecting your rest.

Tailored Plan

psychotherapy

If you are attending for ongoing psychotherapy, sessions are held weekly and last 60 minutes, offering a consistent space to explore broader issues, including but not limited to sleep, in the context of your wider life experience.

Ongoing Support

Ongoing support

Heather offers regular 60-minute follow-up sessions, available on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, to monitor your progress and refine your plan as needed. Sessions are available both online and in-person, ensuring flexible support that fits your lifestyle.

Resources

Resources

You gain access to Heather’s Sleep Library, a curated collection of tools and materials designed to support better sleep habits and foster lasting change.

Take the First Step Toward Restful Nights – Apply for Sleep Therapy Now

Why Choose Heather’s Sleep Clinic?

Heather’s work delves into the psychological, emotional, and relational factors that influence your ability to rest, acknowledging that sleep difficulties are often intertwined with life experiences, stress, and deeper patterns.

  • Deeper Insight: Seeing a psychotherapist for sleep challenges offers an opportunity to address underlying patterns that might not surface through traditional medical or behavioural approaches. Heather helps you uncover the “why” behind your sleep difficulties, moving beyond surface-level solutions.
  • Personalised solutions: Your sleep story is unique. Together, you and Heather will co-create an approach tailored to your specific needs—beginning with a comprehensive two-hour initial consultation and continuing with regular 50-minute follow-up sessions designed for ongoing support and lasting change.
Offering CBTi & psychotherapy
Work With Heather Darwall Smith
  • Accessibility & Flexibility: Heather offers both in-person and online appointments, ensuring accessible, tailored support that fits your lifestyle. Please note that her practice is now entirely insurance-free, allowing her to focus solely on delivering truly personalised care.
  • Integrated Approach: Heather’s method combines evidence-based CBTi techniques with psychotherapy to address sleep challenges from multiple angles, ensuring a holistic path to transformation.

For a more personalized therapy approach, consider our one-on-one sleep therapy.

Sleep Therapist in London

Frequently asked questions

Heather’s practice supports adults facing a wide range of chronic sleep challenges, including insomnia, circadian rhythm disorders, stress-related sleep difficulties, disrupted sleep patterns, and sleep issues linked to ADHD or neurodiversity.
Heather recognises that sleep issues rarely exist in isolation. Working collaboratively with you, she focuses on understanding how emotional, relational, and environmental factors intersect with sleep, creating a tailored path forward. It isn’t just about improving sleep – it’s about fostering a deeper connection between mind and body, enabling you to build sustainable habits and find balance in your life.
The timeline varies depending on your situation, but many clients notice significant improvements within a few weeks of starting their personalised plan—which begins with a comprehensive two-hour consultation followed by regular 50-minute sessions.
No referral is necessary. You can contact Heather directly to schedule your initial consultation.

Heather specialises in adult sleep challenges for those over the age of eighteen.

No, Heather’s practice is entirely insurance-free. This approach allows her to focus solely on providing personalised, high-quality care without the administrative constraints of insurance.
Heather specialises in adult sleep challenges for those over the age of eighteen.