Carl Taylor
EMCC Senior Coach
Shaped as much by lived experience as by training, and it shows in how I work.
what i do
I’m a psychologically informed coach. I work with people at points of change, growing responsibility, or uncertainty, or when a decision matters enough that they want to think it through properly before they act.
Most of the work is about seeing a situation more clearly: stepping back from the immediate pressure, looking at it from more than one angle, and understanding what’s really driving it before deciding how to respond. Some people arrive with a specific question; others simply want somewhere considered to think.
professional background
I’m a Chartered Counselling Psychologist, registered with the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), and an accredited Senior Practitioner Coach with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC).
My coaching draws on more than 25 years of professional experience working with people through change, uncertainty, responsibility, and development. The work is grounded in thoughtful conversation, psychological understanding, and helping people think more clearly about themselves, their decisions, and where they want to go next.
my background
I grew up on a council estate in the North of England and left school at 16 with few qualifications and little expectation that I would go on to higher education or professional training. My early working life was spent as a barber in a small industrial town, where I learned how to build relationships with people from many different walks of life and developed an early interest in people, identity, relationships, and the different ways individuals make sense of themselves and their circumstances.
In my early twenties, I decided I wanted something different from life and returned to education through an adult access course before later studying psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. That experience of reinvention, uncertainty, and moving across different social and professional worlds has remained important to me and continues to shape how I think about ambition, transition, identity, responsibility, pressure, and change.
Alongside postgraduate training in Counselling Psychology at Regent’s University London, I worked within the National Housing Federation’s consultancy and research service, balancing professional work with intensive academic and clinical training. This early experience gave me exposure to organisational systems, leadership, strategic thinking, business development, reflective evaluation, and team coordination alongside my psychological training.
I later spent more than 14 years working within NHS psychotherapy and psychology services, including senior roles within specialist psychological therapies at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Over time, my work expanded across psychology, psychotherapy, supervision, consultation, and service development. I previously led the provision of Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) and Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT) within the Lewisham Integrated Psychological Therapies Team.
Today, I work independently in Central London and online, drawing on more than two decades of experience in psychology, psychotherapy, coaching, and consultation to support people through development, change, and important decisions.
why work with me?
I bring a depth of psychological understanding that most coaches don’t. I say that plainly because it’s true, and because it’s what makes the difference for the people I work with.
More than 25 years as a psychologist and psychotherapist means I can hear what sits beneath a problem, the assumptions and patterns shaping how someone sees their situation, and help them think more clearly than advice or a framework alone could. It also means I know where coaching differs from therapy, and I keep the work firmly on the coaching side: focused on you, your goals, and where you want to get to.
In practice, that’s the difference between being handed something to do and understanding why something has been difficult in the first place, which is usually what allows anything real to change.
in the right balance.
how i work
My training as a psychologist shapes how I listen. I notice patterns, assumptions, and the beliefs people use to make sense of themselves. But you set the direction. My job is to help you think, not to think for you, and to hold what I notice lightly enough that you reach your own conclusions.
I see coaching as a working relationship first. Trust and a real sense of safety are what make honest challenge possible, so I pay attention to how the work feels as much as to what we cover. I’ll use structure to give a conversation shape, but the movement comes from the thinking we do together, not from any framework.
I also hold a particular view of how people actually develop. Real change tends to need enough challenge to move you alongside enough support to make that bearable. Too little challenge and nothing shifts; too much and it overwhelms. And development isn’t something handed over, like information passed across a desk. It’s worked out actively, between us, through conversation, reflection, and testing things in practice. That’s why I don’t offer formulas. Formulas skip the part where the understanding actually forms.
At its centre, the work moves between reflection and action: understanding something more clearly, then testing that understanding in practice and learning from what happens. I’m as interested in how you’ve come to see a situation as in what you conclude about it, because that’s usually where change becomes possible.
who i work with
I work with people, not sectors. What my clients tend to share isn’t a job title but a situation: a period of change or growing responsibility, an important decision, a question of direction, or a sense that a familiar way of working or living no longer quite fits.
They usually value thoughtful conversation over ready answers, and depth over performance: capable, reflective people who want somewhere to think clearly about where they are and where they want to go next.
If you’re looking for motivational coaching, formulas, or ready-made answers, I’m probably not the right fit, and I’d say so. If you want to understand something properly and act on it deliberately, that’s the work I do.
25+ Years of Professional Experience
Working with people through change, uncertainty, responsibility, and development
The work is grounded in thoughtful conversation, psychological understanding, and helping people think more clearly about themselves, their decisions, and the direction they want to move in.
900+ People Worked With
Across psychology, psychotherapy, coaching, and reflective practice
14,000+ Professional Conversations
Focused on relationships, understanding, change, and meaningful movement forward
Accredited Senior Practitioner Coach
I am an accredited Senior Practitioner Coach with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC)
