Redesign the way you think.
You might be here because…
You’re tired, exhausted, overworked. And working harder and longer isn’t solving it. You’re getting further away from the things you want rather than closer to them, because you never get to work on the good stuff.
You know what your potential is, but your imposter feelings are starting to cripple you. The thoughts and the behaviours are holding you back from it.
You’ve tried to improve a professional relationship, but you’re finding you don’t have the skills or courage to advocate for yourself with clarity.
You’re stepping up your leadership, or moving into a different professional space where your skills need upgrading.
What happens when people work with me
I’m in the business of helping people redesign the way they think. The alliance I create with my clients forges a safe, strong space where they develop bespoke thinking tools founded on the strengths, potential, and opportunities they already have at their disposal. My clients learn to recognise their blockers, obstacles, and anxieties, and develop their own tools to dismantle, overcome, or mitigate them. They install new patterns that make their life, work, and relationships more easeful, impactful, and fulfilling. They would get there on their own, but working with me means they do it faster and with less friction. That’s the magic. I’m a Chartered Coaching Psychologist, and the invisible thread through all my work is the psychology of how people think, create, solve problems, learn, and develop themselves.
Ways to work with me
Coaching, one to one
For people who have already put the work in and aren’t getting results that match the effort. “Try harder” is exhausting advice, and effort usually isn’t the problem: the problem is that it isn’t focused on where it would make the most impact. Gaining clarity on what that means for you is where coaching comes in.
I won’t tell you what to do. You are the expert on your own context; my role is to ask the questions that make that visible, and to align with your development agenda, not your organisation’s. I coach using evidence-based frameworks: cognitive-behavioural, solution-focused, and positive psychology approaches.
Previous clients attribute their coaching as a significant factor in achieving:
- Increased research outputs while working fewer hours
- Getting past internal obstacles like procrastination and perfectionism
- A stronger sense of professional identity, and an enhanced research profile
Sessions are an hour, online, usually booked two to six at a time. We’ll start with a scoping conversation: is coaching the right approach for what you’re bringing, and are we a good fit for a coaching alliance?
The difference comes from what you do between sessions: expect around three hours of reflecting, practising and experimenting for every hour we spend together.
Supervision
Supervision for coaching psychologists, and for coaches. Where coaching attends to your own development, supervision reaches further: through you to your practice, and through your practice to your clients. Your wellbeing is part of that, not separate from it.
I’m a Chartered Coaching Psychologist and a BPS-registered supervisor on the Register of Applied Psychology Practice Supervisors (RAPPS). If you’re working towards chartership as a coaching psychologist by the professional recognition route (PRR), that’s the registration your submission requires. If you’re already on the BPS Register of Coaching Psychologists, supervision is part of what maintains it.
Sessions are 90 minutes, one to one, and online. How often is yours to gauge: the BPS minimum is modest, and your rhythm depends on how much coaching you’re delivering and what’s happening in your practice at the time.
We start with a scoping conversation, to work out what you need and whether I’m the right supervisor to provide it.
Strengthscope
A strength isn’t simply something you’re good at. It’s something you’re good at that gives you energy back. Plenty of tasks you’re entirely competent at take energy away instead, and a working life made mostly of those is what drains motivation.
Strengthscope was the first strengths assessment in the world to achieve BPS Registered Test status. It measures 24 strengths across four areas: emotional, relational, thinking, and execution.
You complete it online and we work through your report together, so you can see where your energy actually comes from and start engaging with your strengths more deliberately and more often.
Available as an individual assessment, a 360 with colleague feedback, a leadership version, and a team profile showing where a group’s strengths overlap and complement each other.
I am a Strengthscope Master Practitioner, accredited to deliver Strengthscope, Strengthscope 360, Strengthscope Leader, or Strengthscope Teams
Get in touch to learn more about Strengthscope for individuals or teams
Workshops
I design and deliver workshops for organisations developing their researchers and professional staff. Participants are typically doctoral researchers, early career researchers and clinician researchers, alongside the professional services and line-management staff who work with them.
Topics include perfectionism and imposter feelings; stress, resilience and strengths; workload and strategic prioritisation; assertiveness; negotiation; resolving conflict in the research environment; navigating change and uncertainty; and communicating research to non-specialists. They’re interactive, usually three hours, and run online. Sessions can be adapted for a particular cohort, or condensed into a shorter, more focused webinar.
I’ve run these for universities, doctoral training partnerships and research institutes, and also for the NHS, learned societies, bioscience companies, local government, and the arts and museums sector.
I’m a chartered psychologist and an experienced learning designer, and that shows up in the quality of the design, as well as in the two things participants name most consistently in feedback: the sessions are accessible, and they’re safe enough that people raise the difficulties they’re actually having. I worked with a university consortium to develop their accessibility policy for online workshops.
What clients say
These coaching sessions have been the highlight of the [programme so far]. My approach to work, self-confidence, and work-life balance has improved immeasurably as a result of Sarah’s guidance. This has led to significant research outputs despite the challenges of long-term sleep deprivation.
Coaching client, Strategic Fellowship Programme
Really presented and explained to such a high standard, with a lot of warmth, respect, humour and sincerity. The group sessions were really valuable and I felt completely safe with the feedback.
Participant, institution-wide development programme
…We have been the most exhausted and battered cohort ever. I have wondered at times how any one of us could have been motivated at all to engage or change. Sarah managed it.
Professional services staff, personal development programme
About me
I’m Dr Sarah Robins-Hobden, a Chartered Psychologist and Chartered Coaching Psychologist, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and a BPS-registered (RAPPS) supervisor of coaching psychologists. Since 2013 I’ve worked as a freelance coach and researcher developer across universities, research institutes, the NHS, learned societies, bioscience companies, local government, and the arts and museums sector.
I left school at sixteen with one GCSE. I know what it is to be certain you don’t belong somewhere, and to be wrong about it. That’s probably why my most requested workshop is about handling imposter feelings.
Reflexive practice sits at the core of how I work. I take more supervision than either of my professional bodies requires, because the depth of thinking I do about my own work is exactly what I ask of my clients.
Where to start
It starts with a conversation. No fee, no obligation, and we both use it to work out whether I’m the right person for what you need.