Dr. Irem Gunay is a psychologist and psychotherapist offering transformational work at threshold moments: when you know you have reached the edge of who you have been and must step into something new. Her clients are often navigating questions of self-understanding and purpose, feeling disconnected from themselves or others, sensing a gap between their external life and internal experience. They may not yet have clear language for it, but they sense something fundamental needs to reorient. They arrive seeking clarity, direction, or a way through.
Dr. Gunay’s approach integrates evidence-based psychological methods with philosophical inquiry. Rather than imposing formulaic frameworks, she focuses on what each client is genuinely experiencing. The work goes beyond managing symptoms to foster deeper self-understanding. Part of that work is understanding what genuinely sustains each client: what nourishes, what depletes, what conditions allow them to flourish.
What emerges from the work as a whole changes how clients relate to their own experience. Everything else follows from that: one’s relationship to oneself first, and from there, the quality of decisions made, the coherence of inner conviction and outward action, the texture of relationships, and the aliveness of daily life.
Dr. Gunay holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cambridge, followed by four years of postdoctoral work at Imperial College London. She earned her BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Columbia College, Columbia University. She holds Master’s degrees in Social and Developmental Psychology (University of Cambridge), Applied Positive Psychology (UPenn), and Existential Psychotherapy (Regent’s University London). She is a certified Health and Wellbeing Coach (Duke University) and certified Mindfulness Teacher following a 2-year intensive (UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center). Her training spans research-based psychology, philosophical inquiry and existential psychotherapy, and contemplative practice.
Because transformational work is intensive and deeply personal, Dr. Gunay works with a small number of clients at any one time, online and in person in Knightsbridge/Belgravia, giving each engagement the depth it requires. If you sense this work might be relevant to where you are, get in touch.
