About Energeia Psychology
Hello, I'm Vicki-Lee.
I've taken an unconventional path.
Before psychology, my life took me through some rather unexpected places.
I was a dancer, then a model. I worked with Dior, Chanel and Guerlain before moving to Paris, where I worked in luxury fashion with brands including Lanvin and Maison Martin Margiela.
I've also spent much of my life around the arts. I'm a cinéphile and lifelong lover of story, symbolism and the imagination. I studied screenwriting and directing, worked in film and television, and even ran an art gallery for a time.
I've also been a daughter, sister, mother, wife and friend, which may be some of the more rigorous courses in human psychology I've undertaken.
And alongside all of this, there has been another, quieter thread running through my life.
I've always been learning.
I'm interested in the different ways we try to make sense of being human.
I don't necessarily believe everything I find interesting.
I'm quite comfortable holding an idea in my mind without deciding that it must be true. Curiosity, for me, is an invitation to explore, question and look more closely.
Eventually, all roads led back to people.
There is no look.
For years, I didn't consider that I might be Autistic.
Why would I?
I'd been identified as gifted as a child. I knew I was different. I already had an explanation for some of that difference.
But Autistic?
I didn't look Autistic.
Or at least, I didn't look like what I thought Autism looked like.
I wasn't looking in the mirror and secretly wondering if I was Rain Man. I was in magazines, remember.
And that is part of the problem.
We tend to imagine Autism as something that should be visible. Something you can recognise if you know what you're looking for.
But there is no look to it.
Sometimes the invisibility isn't simply that someone is masking very well.
Nobody is looking for it.
Including the person themselves.
A diagnosis is a beginning
I believe strongly in diagnosis. A good diagnosis can provide a map. It can help explain patterns that may otherwise have seemed confusing, contradictory or simply like personal failings.
But a diagnosis is only part of the picture.
It tells us something meaningful. It doesn't tell us everything.
The more useful question is: what does this particular person's brain and nervous system need to flourish?
Understanding yourself matters because it gives you something to work with; in how you live, work, relate and look after yourself.
That's where diagnosis becomes genuinely useful.
The mind is a servant, not the master.
We like to think that thought comes first.
Often, it doesn't.
Our nervous systems are constantly taking in information, detecting patterns and responding to what they perceive as significant; often before our conscious minds have worked out what is happening.
You walk into a room and something feels off. Someone is tense. Someone feels unsafe. Your body may have registered it before you've consciously identified what you've noticed.
Then the mind gets involved.
It looks for an explanation.
And explanations aren't always accurate.
The response can be real even when the story we attach to it isn't.
Who's afraid of the bogeyman?
What this means for you
You don't need to arrive with everything figured out. In fact, that's often the point.
You might know something isn't quite working but not understand why. You might have a diagnosis that answers some questions but raises others. Or you might simply be curious about yourself.
My job is to help you make sense of the pieces.
We'll look at patterns and context, follow the evidence, ask questions and sometimes challenge the obvious explanation.
We'll make room for complexity. You can be highly capable and struggling. Rational and deeply intuitive. You can understand something intellectually and still respond very differently in the moment.