About Dr Annalisa Manca

I am originally from Italy and have lived in the UK since 2005. I came to Northern Ireland to do a PhD at Queen's University Belfast, and stayed, which anyone who has spent a spring here will understand.

How I trained

I am an integrative psychotherapist, which means I draw on more than one approach depending on what a person actually needs.

My training is in psychodynamic therapy, which looks at how earlier experience shows up in present-day patterns; BWRT®, which works with automatic responses at the level where they are generated rather than through discussing them; somatic approaches, which work with the physical sensations underneath psychological states; and Pain Reprocessing Therapy, which works with how the nervous system interprets and produces physical symptoms.

BWRT® is my main approach, and you can read more about how it works.

What I work with most

Anxiety, trauma and persistent physical symptoms, and very often all three in the same person, because they tend to travel together.

Chronic pain and physical symptoms are where much of my depth is. I have presented case work at the BWRT® Congress in 2024 and 2025, taught the stress and pain cycle to physiotherapists and healthcare educators, and I train other therapists as an Accredited Trainer with the BWRT® Institute. I wrote a book, The Safety Signal, about the conversation between brain and body that sits underneath persistent symptoms.

What it means in practice is that when someone arrives with pain that has been investigated and explained away, I am not working it out for the first time.

How I work

My practice is relational. I am interested in building a real working relationship rather than performing neutrality at you, and what happens between us in the room is part of the work rather than a preliminary to it.

We spend time understanding what you are experiencing and why, because changes tend to hold better when they rest on understanding rather than on instruction. I follow your pace. There is no version of you that needs tidying up before you arrive.

Mind and body are not two separate systems that occasionally interfere with each other, and my work assumes that throughout.

Some of what brings people here

A sense that something is in the way of actually living

Emotional or physical pain that makes the present moment hard to be in

Patterns that repeat, with change feeling permanently out of reach

A feeling of not being good enough that seeps into days, work and relationships

Holding back your real self, because showing it has cost you before

If you recognise yourself in any of that, it is workable territory.

It is also very common, which is easy to forget when you are inside it.

When I am not in a session or teaching yoga, I am usually lifting weights, having coffee with friends, walking a long way for no particular reason, or asleep. I mention this because people sometimes arrive expecting a therapist to be a slightly unreal, endlessly serene presence. I am a person, and the work goes better that way.

Qualifications & Training

  • PhD, Queen's University Belfast

  • Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

  • BrainWorking Recursive Therapy (BWRT®): Advanced

  • Practitioner and Accredited Trainer

  • WSN Coaching & Counselling

  • Pain Reprocessing Therapy

  • Somatic Approaches to Healing Trauma

  • Somatic Internal Family Systems

  • Hatha Raja Yoga (YTT200), including mindfulness meditation, breathwork and elements of QiGong

  • Ashtanga Yoga

  • Yoga for Athletes

I am registered with The International BWRT® Institute and work to its code of practice, and I carry full professional liability insurance for psychotherapy and somatic and yoga practice through Everywhen Insurance.

I work in person in Belfast and Lisburn, and Online.

If you would like to talk

The free initial consultation is a conversation about you, with no obligation to book anything afterwards.

Dr Annalisa Manca Psychotherapy | BELFAST | LISBURN | © Copyright 2026 - All Rights Reserved