James Byrne – Online Psychotherapist, Clinical Supervisor & Founder of Rainbow Minds

I’m James Byrne, an accredited psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, educator and founder of Rainbow Minds.

I work online with adults in Ireland, the UK and internationally, offering psychotherapy and clinical supervision to people looking for a thoughtful, relational and engaged way of working.

A significant part of my work has centred on men’s mental health, particularly the inner lives of gay, bisexual, trans and queer men. I am especially interested in experiences that can be difficult to speak about openly: shame, intimacy, sexuality, masculinity, body image, loneliness, desire, relationships, identity and belonging.

That is an important part of my work, but it is not the limit of it.

I work with adults of different genders, sexualities and backgrounds, and I am open to working with most people who feel there may be something useful in the way I practise.

Often, the people who come to me are not looking for a neat label or a quick explanation. Something may feel stuck, complicated, repetitive or difficult to name. They may understand themselves very well intellectually and still find themselves struggling in relationships, feeling disconnected, questioning where their life is going, grieving something important, or wondering how they want to live.

I am interested in therapy that makes room for those bigger questions.

How I Work

My approach is relational, integrative and engaged.

I am not a blank-slate therapist. I will think with you, reflect with you and, when it feels useful, challenge you.

I am interested not only in what has happened in your life, but in how those experiences continue to shape the way you relate to yourself, other people and the world around you.

My work draws on relational and integrative psychotherapy, attachment-based thinking, trauma-informed practice and body-focused perspectives. I am also influenced by contemporary thinking about shame, sexuality, neurodivergence, masculinity, grief, meaning and human development.

I tend to work conversationally. There can be seriousness, but there can also be humour.

I am comfortable talking directly about things people sometimes worry will be too difficult, too explicit or too complicated for therapy: sex, desire, shame, bodies, ageing, jealousy, anger, compulsive behaviour, loneliness, mortality, identity, grief and relationships.

You do not need to make your life sound more acceptable, coherent or comfortable for me.

Sometimes therapy involves working with a very specific problem. At other times, the questions are much broader:

Who am I becoming?

What actually matters to me?

Why do I keep ending up here?

What gives my life meaning?

How do I want to spend the time I have?

You do not need to arrive knowing the answer.

Finding the language can be part of the work.

Who I Tend to Work Well With

There is no single type of person I work with, but people often find their way to me when they:

  • have done a great deal of thinking about themselves but still feel stuck

  • keep repeating the same relationship or emotional patterns

  • struggle with shame, self-worth or self-criticism

  • have spent years adapting themselves to what other people need

  • feel lonely or disconnected despite having people around them

  • are questioning their direction, purpose or sense of meaning

  • are trying to understand their relationship with sex, intimacy or desire

  • are struggling with body image, desirability or ageing

  • are thinking about masculinity, identity or belonging

  • are exploring ADHD or autism, particularly later in life

  • feel exhausted by masking, performing or trying to meet other people's expectations

  • are grieving a person, relationship, identity, role or future they expected to have

  • are living alongside serious illness, anticipatory grief or mortality

  • have been in therapy before but want something more relational and engaged

You do not need to fit one of these descriptions to work with me. They simply reflect areas where my experience and way of thinking tend to be particularly useful.

Areas I Work With

My psychotherapy practice includes work around:

  • shame and self-worth

  • anxiety, low mood and emotional overwhelm

  • intimacy, attachment and relationships

  • sexuality, desire and erotic life

  • LGBTQ+ identity and experience

  • gay and bisexual men’s mental health

  • masculinity and men’s emotional lives

  • loneliness, friendship and belonging

  • body image, desirability and ageing

  • ADHD, autism and neurodivergence

  • masking and burnout

  • chemsex and complicated relationships with sex or substances

  • compulsive or conflicting behaviours

  • relationship diversity and non-monogamy

  • major life transitions

  • identity and questions of direction

  • loss, grief and bereavement

  • anticipatory grief

  • serious illness, mortality, death and dying

  • meaning, purpose and existential questions

  • the impact of early relationships and formative experiences

My practice is LGBTQ+ affirming, neurodiversity affirming, sex-positive and kink-affirming.

I work comfortably with people in open, polyamorous and other non-traditional relationship structures. I do not assume that heterosexuality, monogamy, conventional gender roles or one particular way of organising a life or relationship should be treated as the standard against which everything else is measured.

I currently work with adults aged 18 and over only. I do not offer psychotherapy to children or adolescents under 18, and I do not offer family therapy.

Men’s Mental Health, Masculinity & Belonging

Men’s mental health is a particular interest in my work.

I am interested not simply in whether a man is anxious or depressed, but in the wider emotional lives of men: how we understand ourselves, how we form friendships, how we experience intimacy, how we relate to our bodies, and how masculinity can shape what feels possible to express.

For many men there can be a significant gap between being able to function and actually feeling connected to a life.

There may be achievement but little sense of meaning, relationships but little intimacy, sex but little connection, or people around us without a real sense of belonging.

Therapy can provide somewhere to think about those experiences without assuming there is one correct way to be a man.

For gay, bisexual and queer men, these questions can intersect further with desirability, masculinity, body image, sex, ageing, shame, rejection, visibility and community.

I have facilitated men’s groups, retreats and other spaces for reflection and connection since 2012, and these questions continue to inform both my psychotherapy work and my wider professional interests.

LGBTQ+ Therapy, Sexuality & Relationships

LGBTQ+ mental health has been a substantial part of my clinical and professional work for many years.

My approach goes beyond simply being “LGBTQ+ friendly.”

I am interested in how sexuality, gender, family, relationships, culture, community and social expectations become woven into our understanding of ourselves.

I am also comfortable working explicitly with sexuality and erotic life.

Sex can be a source of pleasure, connection and meaning. It can also become entangled with shame, loneliness, validation, trauma, compulsivity, rejection or the need to feel wanted.

Therapy can provide somewhere to think about that without judgement or moralising.

I also work with people navigating open relationships, polyamory, non-monogamy, kink and other forms of relationship and sexual diversity.

Neurodivergence, ADHD & Autism

I work extensively with neurodivergent adults, particularly autistic people and people with ADHD.

I recognise that neurodivergence does not sit separately from the rest of somebody’s life.

It can intersect with sexuality, gender, relationships, work, sensory experience, burnout, self-esteem, masking, identity and the ways we learn to adapt ourselves to what other people expect.

Some people come to therapy already diagnosed. Others are newly diagnosed, self-identifying, questioning whether they may be neurodivergent, or simply beginning to understand longstanding patterns in a different way.

I aim to work with neurodivergence without treating difference itself as something that needs to be corrected.

Loss, Grief, Death & the Bigger Questions

I have a particular interest in loss, grief, bereavement, death and dying, and have undertaken extensive professional training in supporting people around these experiences.

Loss is much broader than bereavement.

We can grieve people, relationships, health, youth, careers, fertility, communities, identities, possibilities and futures that did not happen.

Sometimes people are grieving something they did not initially recognise as grief at all.

I work with people who are bereaved, experiencing anticipatory grief, facing the death of somebody important to them, living alongside serious illness, or beginning to think differently about their own mortality.

These experiences often open into wider questions about what it means to live.

What makes a life meaningful?

What matters when some of the things we previously organised our lives around begin to fall away?

How do we live knowing that relationships, bodies and lives are finite?

Therapy does not necessarily provide answers to those questions.

It can provide somewhere to ask them properly.

Clinical Supervision

Alongside psychotherapy, I offer online clinical supervision to psychotherapists, counsellors and other practitioners in Ireland, the UK and internationally.

My supervision style is relational and reflective.

Of course we think carefully about clients and clinical work, but supervision with me is not simply case management.

There is room to think about you as the practitioner: your responses, uncertainty, confidence, blind spots, professional identity, ethical dilemmas, the relationships you form with clients and what the work brings up in you.

I particularly welcome supervisees working with:

  • LGBTQ+ clients

  • gender and sexuality

  • relationship diversity

  • ADHD, autism and neurodivergence

  • shame and identity

  • adolescents and young adults

  • men’s mental health

  • grief and bereavement

  • sexuality, intimacy and chemsex

  • complex relational work

  • private practice

  • ethical and professional dilemmas

You do not need to specialise in any of these areas to work with me.

I supervise practitioners based in the UK and internationally, but professional bodies differ in their requirements for supervision.

If you are using supervision towards accreditation, registration, training or another formal professional requirement, please check with your own accreditation or membership provider that your supervision arrangements meet their criteria.

If you are unsure, we can talk through this before beginning.

Reduced-fee supervision is available for students and trainee practitioners.

A Little About Me

Outside therapy, I am usually either in the ceramics studio, in the garden, or somewhere outdoors.

I love making things with my hands, growing food, walking, being in nature, noticing, experimenting and occasionally getting things completely wrong and starting again.

Those things are not entirely separate from how I think about therapy.

I am interested in what takes time, what needs the right conditions to grow, what cannot be forced, and what becomes clearer when we stop rushing towards an answer.

I value curiosity over certainty.

I am drawn to the idea that understanding ourselves is often less about fixing something and more about paying attention, making sense of what is there, and allowing something new to take shape.

Nature, creativity, growing and making are important parts of my own life, and they increasingly inform the groups, retreats and other spaces I facilitate outside individual psychotherapy.

Beyond the Therapy Room

Psychotherapy is one part of my work.

Alongside individual therapy and supervision, I teach, facilitate professional training, run groups and create spaces for people to think together about relationships, identity, sexuality, shame, masculinity, neurodivergence, grief, connection and what it means to live a meaningful life.

Through Rainbow Minds, I develop and deliver professional education in gender, sexuality, relationships, neurodivergence and relational practice.

I have presented nationally and internationally on LGBTQ+ mental health, neurodivergence and psychotherapy, including at events connected with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

I like work that moves between the clinical, educational, creative and human. I am less interested in keeping those things in completely separate boxes.

Training & Professional Background

I hold a BA (Hons) in Counselling and Psychotherapy from the Institute of Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy in Ireland and an MSc in Adolescent Psychotherapy from the University of Northampton.

I also hold a Diploma in Clinical Supervision Across Professions and have undertaken extensive additional professional development in LGBTQ+ mental health, gender and sexuality, trauma, neurodivergence, relational practice, loss and grief.

I am an Accredited Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).

I am the Founder and Clinical Director of Rainbow Minds.

When I Might Not Be the Right Therapist

Finding the right therapist matters, and I will not necessarily be the right fit for everybody.

I work exclusively online and with adults aged 18 and over.

I do not offer therapy for children, adolescents under 18 or families.

My style is relational, conversational and exploratory.

If you are specifically looking for a highly structured manualised programme, diagnostic assessment, crisis intervention or a therapist who will primarily tell you what to do, another service may be a better fit.

If we speak and I do not think I am the right person for what you need, I will be straightforward about that.

Online Psychotherapy – Ireland, UK & Worldwide

I work online only, offering psychotherapy to adults in Ireland, the UK and internationally.

Standard individual psychotherapy sessions are 50 minutes.

Some people work with me weekly. Others attend fortnightly or use therapy more flexibly depending on their needs.

I also offer single-session and ad-hoc psychotherapy appointments for people who want to explore a particular issue, need support around a specific moment, or want somewhere to return to at different points in their life.

Longer sessions of up to 90 minutes can also be arranged where useful.

I offer a free introductory call if you would like to meet briefly, ask questions and get a sense of whether working together feels right.

Fees

Individual psychotherapy: €80

Relationship therapy: €100

Extended sessions are charged proportionately.

Reduced-fee psychotherapy appointments are available for students.

Reduced-fee clinical supervision is also available for student and trainee practitioners.