Dr Bahrie Veliu

Our relationships with ourselves and others shape how we experience distress, safety, identity, and connection.

Many people seek therapy when familiar ways of coping no longer work. They may feel disconnected, emotionally overwhelmed, uncertain in relationships, or caught in patterns that are difficult to understand or change. My work focuses on helping individuals, couples, and families make sense of these patterns and develop more adaptive ways of relating, regulating, and making decisions.

For more than a decade, I have worked at the intersection of clinical psychology, trauma treatment, attachment science, neuroscience, and relational practice. My approach is evidence-informed, formulation-based, and grounded in the understanding that symptoms are often connected to a person’s developmental history, nervous system responses, relational experiences, and current life context.

I work collaboratively with clients to support emotional regulation, psychological flexibility, self-understanding, and meaningful behavioural change. Therapy is not only about processing the past. It is also about strengthening the capacity to respond more effectively in the present and move toward a life that feels more coherent, connected, and purposeful.

Areas of Special Interest

I work with adults, couples, and families experiencing:

Trauma, complex PTSD, developmental trauma, dissociation, chronic stress, burnout, hypervigilance, and nervous system dysregulation.

Attachment and relationship difficulties, including trust, intimacy, boundaries, abandonment fears, autonomy fears, relational trauma, family conflict, separation, divorce, and recovery from emotionally harmful relationships.

Emotional and cognitive challenges, including anxiety, panic, depression, ADHD, autism, emotional regulation difficulties, obsessive thinking, perfectionism, self-criticism, identity difficulties, procrastination, and work-life imbalance.

Individual Therapy

I provide tailored psychological therapy for individuals seeking support with trauma, emotional regulation, relationship difficulties, anxiety, mood, identity, neurodivergence, and life transitions. My work integrates evidence-based approaches with careful clinical formulation to support both insight and practical change.

Therapeutic Modalities

EMDR: Used in the treatment of trauma, PTSD, grief, and distress linked to adverse or relational experiences.

DBT: A skills-based approach supporting emotional regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and behavioural control.

ACT: A values-based approach that strengthens psychological flexibility and supports meaningful action.

CBT and Schema Therapy: Approaches that help identify and shift unhelpful patterns in thinking, beliefs, behaviour, and emotional responses.

Neuroscience-Informed Therapy: An approach informed by brain functioning, nervous system regulation, and the principles of neuroplasticity.

Couples Therapy

I work with couples to understand and shift repetitive relational patterns, improve communication, strengthen emotional safety, and build more secure-functioning relationships. My couples work is informed by attachment theory, neuroscience, and relationship research, drawing from:

PACT: A neurobiological approach focused on nervous system regulation, attachment, and secure-functioning relationships.

EFT: An attachment-based approach that helps couples identify and reshape negative interaction patterns.

The Gottman Method: Evidence-based strategies for improving communication, trust, repair, and intimacy.

Family Court Specialist Assessments & Therapy

I have over seven years of experience as a specialist report writer and expert witness in Family Court matters. I provide psychological assessment and therapy for families navigating complex legal, relational, and developmental issues.

My work focuses on the emotional, psychological, and relational impact of family separation, high-conflict parenting disputes, parental dynamics, and child adjustment.

I provide specialist support in relation to high-conflict parenting disputes, co-parenting and parallel parenting arrangements, parent-child attachment difficulties, contact issues, estrangement, alienation, resistance, and children’s emotional and behavioural responses to family breakdown.

My approach is trauma-informed, attachment-based, developmentally focused, and child-centred. The aim is to support safer family functioning, reduce conflict where possible, and keep the child’s developmental needs clearly in focus.

Background and Experience

I have over 12 years of post-doctoral experience across adult community mental health, private practice, international trauma work, and specialist Family Court practice.

Before moving to New Zealand, I worked for five years as a trauma therapist with UN agencies and international humanitarian organisations in Kosovo and Indonesia. This work involved providing psychosocial support to individuals and communities affected by war, displacement, trauma, and human trafficking, while collaborating with international teams in complex humanitarian contexts.

I also have specialised experience in Family Court assessments and therapy, providing expert psychological evaluations and therapeutic support for families navigating separation, co-parenting disputes, complex relational dynamics, and relational trauma.

Supervision Services

I am trained in clinical group supervision and have completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Systemic Group Supervision at Basel University, Switzerland.

I provide specialist supervision for mental health professionals, with a focus on clinicians working in high-stress and high-complexity environments, case conceptualisation, therapeutic formulation, trauma-informed practice, neuroscience integration, burnout risk, and practitioner wellbeing.