About Marina
My name is Marina O’Connor and I have a private psychotherapy practice working with clients in the UK, Portugal and across Europe.
I came to this work through my own reckoning. After almost fifteen years as a strategic marketing professional, serial entrepreneur and CEO, founding and scaling a VC-backed technology company, raising investment, building teams, I realised that everything I had been building was driven by a need to prove myself rather than by anything true to who I was.
I know what it means to function under pressure. To perform. To keep moving forward even when something underneath is fracturing. And I know what it costs relationships. That drive that fuels ambition, can also dismantle intimacy. Often the qualities that make someone exceptional in business or boardroom are often the exact qualities that create distance and disconnection in life.
When I finally stopped and looked honestly at what I had been building, and in parallel what I have been avoiding, everything changed. I began my studies at the Gestalt Centre in London, later getting trained in transactional analysis and deepening into specialist relationship & couples work. In 2019 my family and I relocated to the beautiful town of Cascais in Portugal.
I believe that the quality of your relationships, how fulfilled you feel in them, defines the quality of your life. Not your achievements. Not your status. The relationships you live inside, with yourself and others, those determine whether life feels worth living.
We enter every relationship carrying invisible luggage. Templates about love, safety, intimacy and worth that were formed before we had the language to question them. These templates shape who we choose, how we attach, how we fight, and how we withdraw or disappear when things feel threatening. Most of the time we have no idea they're running the show.
That's what therapy is for. Not to fix what's broken, but to make visible and integrate what was always there, so you can re-decide and choose something different.
I remember starting psychotherapy myself at the age of 23, how challenging it felt for me, feeling anxious whether it would make a difference, whether I could open up and trust. I carry that memory as a reminder into my client work. About what courage it takes. I recognise and respect every person who decides to begin this life-changing journey.
How I work
My clinical approach is relational, structured and emotionally precise. I integrate transactional analysis psychotherapy, Relational Life Therapy (RLT), postgraduate training in trauma therapy and my formative relationship & couples training to support deep levels of both emotional and behavioural changes rather than insight alone.
I put empathy at the centre of the therapeutic process. I look past diagnosis, labels and presenting symptoms to see the authentic self that exists in every person. I believe in a strong internal energy to grow that all people have, called physis, and my work is focused on helping clients to access and re-connect with that vital part of themselves.
I create a safe, confidential space where we can co-create an experience that leads to genuine change, healing and growth.
Areas of specialist focus
TRAUMA & RELATIONAL DIFFICULTIES
I am experienced in working with developmental (childhood) and transgenerational trauma, as well as deep-rooted relational difficulties. I look past diagnosis and labels to see the person beneath and the patterns, often unconscious, that were formed long before they became problems.
HIGH-CONFLICT COUPLES
I specialise in working with couples who feel trapped in repetitive cycles of criticism, defensiveness, withdrawal, control or escalation.
Many of couples I work with appear highly functional externally, yet privately experience volatility, resentment, or emotional distance. My work focuses on identifying the protective strategies beneath conflict, often shame, fear, attachment injuries and unmet needs, to help partners to move beyond blame and retaliation into accountability, connection and relational mindfullness.
COUPLES INTENSIVES
For couples who need more than what weekly sessions can offer. Immersive, deeper, one, two or three-day work that creates the kind of shift that months of therapy sometimes can't reach.
LEADERSHIP & HIGH-PERFORMING COUPLES
With my background as a founder and CEO, I have particular depth working with high-achieving individuals and couples where ambition, identity, and performance intensify relational strain.
I understand from the inside as well as through my work, how perfectionism, emotional withdrawal, grandiosity, or high stakes conflict develop when success becomes fused with self-worth. My work supports couples in separating performance from intimacy and developing the capacity to remain emotionally available even under pressure.
NEURODIVERSE & MIXED-NEUROTYPE COUPLES
I work with neurodiverse couples, including mixed-neurotype partnerships where ADHD, autism, or differences in sensory processing, communication style, and nervous system regulation shape relational dynamics.
I help couples to understand how:
- Emotional intensity or shutdown may be protective rather than intentional
- Executive functioning challenges become relational triggers
- Differences in processing speed or emotional expression create misattunement
- Chronic misunderstanding erodes safety and goodwill
My approach ensures that neither partner is pathologised or sidelined. Therapy focuses on building shared language, realistic expectations, and relational accountability so that repair becomes possible when both partners feel genuinely seen and respected.
INTERCULTURAL RELATIONSHIPS
I work with intercultural couples and individuals, exploring how migration histories, family expectations, transgenerational narratives, cultural values, and power dynamics shape attachment and conflict.
I work thoughtfully with questions of belonging, loyalty, identity, and difference helping couples build understanding across cultural frameworks without erasing authenticity and individuality.
