Angharad Thomas

Hi, I'm Angharad, a UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist and BACP Senior Accredited Counsellor.  With many years of experience, I provide professional, long- and short-term psychotherapy and counselling to adults and young people across North Wales, as well as online throughout the UK. 

Locations

My offices are conveniently located in Conwy, North Wales, and in Betws yn Rhos, situated between Colwyn Bay and Abergele. Both locations provide peaceful, private, and discreet settings that are ideal for therapy, with free off-road parking available for your convenience. My Conwy office is fully wheelchair accessible, and I offer flexible appointment times to suit your needs.

Could Therapy Help Me?

Life can be hard going and, at times and, we all experience distress or face difficulties that can be hard to manage alone.  Perhaps you're feeling anxious, depressed, or confused about relationships or work. You may be facing painful experiences through illness, bereavement, or family breakdown.  Maybe you're feeling stuck, have lost direction, or are unsure of who you are. Or, perhaps things just don’t feel right, and you're not sure why. You might be seeking to better understand yourself or your situation, or perhaps you're looking to enhance your self - awareness.

Whatever your reason for getting in touch, I offer a reliable, supportive, and highly confidential space where you can speak freely about your concerns within a warm and secure relationship. Whilst therapy can be challenging at times, it can also be immensely rewarding. It offers the opportunity to understand the underlying causes of your difficulties, find relief from what's troubling you, explore new possibilities, and ultimately move forward with greater clarity and confidence.

How Can Therapy Help?

The goals of therapy are many, and among the most important are:

• Finding resolution to the issues or concerns that led you to seek therapy
• Gaining deeper self-awareness and clarity about your goals and values
• Improving your self-esteem and boosting self-confidence​ 
• Learning new ways to cope with stress and anxiety
• Better management of powerful emotions such as anger, grief and depression
• Enhancing relationship skills and building healthier connections
• Changing old behaviour patterns and developing new ones
• Discovering new ways to address challenges within your family or marriage
• Strengthening communications and listening skills

Areas I Can Help With:

As a UKCP-registered psychotherapist, I am trained to work with a wide range of issues. That said, here are some areas in which I commonly work:

• Alleviating Anxiety & Depression
• Easing Stress & Lifting Low Mood
• Healing from Abuse & Trauma
• Navigating Loss & Bereavement
• Improving Relationships
• Exploring Identity Issues
• Building Self Esteem
• Adapting to Life Transitions
• Finding Purpose and Meaning

Whilst I have provided a list of areas in which I can help, I do not believe that the feelings and challenges we face fit neatly into discrete categories. Instead, I recognise each person’s experience as unique, with different aspects of our lives deeply interconnected, often in ways we might not expect.  As such, the list above is by no means exhaustive, so please feel free to contact me even if your concerns don't perfectly match these descriptions.

Therapy is not just about addressing isolated issues; it’s about understanding your experience and you as a whole person, with therapy individually tailored to meet your specific needs. The strong therapeutic relationship we build together will serve as the foundation for exploring, navigating, and resolving the complexities of your experience, allowing for meaningful and lasting healing and change.

You can read more about the areas in which I work here:  https://www.angharadthomas.co.uk/could-therapy-help-me

How to get started

Taking the first step in seeking help can be difficult and anxiety-provoking, especially if you’ve never had psychotherapy or counselling before. I understand this because I’ve been there myself and have experienced firsthand the benefits of therapy.

To help put your mind at ease, I've provided detailed information on my website (www.angharadthomas.co.uk) to give you an insight into psychotherapy and counselling, who I am and how we can work together.

Another way to find out more about who I am and how I can help is to get in touch via the contact form, text or email.   I’m also happy to speak briefly on the phone; if I’m unable to answer your call immediately, please leave a message, and I will get back to you as soon as I can. 

Meeting together for the first time

Meeting with a therapist for the first time can be a rather daunting experience. It’s normal to feel uncertain or even nervous about starting therapy, and I will do everything I can to make our first encounter as easy and relaxed as possible.  Although many people find that the first step is the hardest, once you begin, you’ll discover the benefits of having a dedicated space to explore your thoughts and feelings without judgement.

Once you decide to get in touch, we can arrange a time to meet, and I will send you a psychotherapy and counselling contract.  This contract doesn’t tie you into anything but rather explains my policies around confidentiality, payment, cancellations, and more, ensuring that if we decide to work together, we do so within safe and clear boundaries. I’ll also send you directions to my office, which offers a quiet and discreet place to meet.

When we meet for our first session, I will invite you to begin discussing what brings you to therapy and explore your expectations.  I may ask some questions to learn more about you and your situation.  We can also talk through any concerns or anxieties you have about the therapeutic process, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions if you are unsure about anything.

At the end of our first session, if we both feel that we can work together, we’ll discuss our next steps. If you need a little more time to decide, that’s perfectly fine too. Sometimes therapy with me may not be the right way forward, and if that’s the case, I can guide you toward other sources of support.

There is no obligation to continue after this first session, and you are always free to end therapy at any point.

You can view my full Psychotherapy and Counselling Agreement here:  https://www.angharadthomas.co.uk/in-person-therapy-counselling-contract

What to expect

Psychotherapy and counselling is very often called a 'talking therapy' because it gives you the opportunity to talk about what is troubling you.  In each session you will have the opportunity to talk about, and explore, the issues or concerns that matter most to you within a safe and supportive relationship with a trained professional. Through this process you will make new connections and gain new insights into your past and present experience, which will assist you to develop the inner resources you need to be better able to manage difficult experiences and to move forward.

During sessions, I will help you to talk about your feelings, behaviours, thoughts, memories, beliefs, assumptions and body sensations associated with what is troubling you.   We might also look at your relationship with yourself, your relationships with others—both past and present—and the relationship we develop in therapy.  This can help you to see your difficulties in a new light and put into practice healthier ways of being.  Though I would encourage you to talk about things that feel challenging to speak about, I will never force or pressure you to speak about things you do not wish to discuss and we will always go at a pace that feels comfortable for you.  For those who find it especially hard to talk or express their feelings and find 'talking therapies' sometimes too challenging, I can suggest creative activities we can do together through which you can explore your situation and express your feelings, which may feel more comfortable for you.   

Whilst I won’t give advice, tell you what to do, or make a diagnosis, I will provide a space for you to talk, listen carefully to what you share, and try to understand your experience as deeply as I can.  I may ask questions to help you consider things from a different angle or see things from a new perspective.  I understand from experience that this process might feel difficult or strange at first, and it’s my role as your therapist to support you through this.  In sessions,  you might find yourself crying, feeling upset or getting  angry.  This can feel unsettling and intense, however, you won't be alone.  I see these feelings as an important part of our work together and will welcome all aspects of your experience, helping you process and manage any emotions that arise.

You can read more about what therapy is like with me here:  https://www.angharadthomas.co.uk/what-is-therapy-like

How many session will I need?

This depends entirely on your situation, the difficulties you are encountering and your personal preference. Therapy does not always offer an immediate solution to long standing and often painful problems. Some issues are better suited to short-term therapy and some to longer-term therapy. There is no upper limit to the number of sessions you can have, and you may continue in therapy for as long as you find it beneficial.

Generally speaking, if you want to focus on one specific issue, or seek to explore a particular area of your life more deeply, short-term therapy might be appropriate. Working this way we would concentrate on understanding the particular problem at hand, exploring its roots and how it impacts you. Through our work together, we’ll aim to bring clarity and insight to the issue, helping you navigate it with greater awareness and understanding in your day-to-day life.  Additionally, we can also work on identifying and making the most of your existing strengths and resources, enabling you to handle the challenges you face in new and more effective ways.

For more complex issues, such as ingrained personality traits, behavioural patterns, experiences of abuse and neglect, or for supporting ongoing personal growth, open-ended, exploratory long-term therapy with no defined endpoint may be more effective. Working this way allows trust to be built gradually over time and provides a consistent and reliable space for you to explore and resolve more deeply seated emotional difficulties.  It also offers the time needed to develop a deeper understanding and acceptance of yourself, leading to positive and lasting change.

Ultimately, the number of sessions you have is entirely up to you, and you may already have ideas about what you’ll find most helpful - we can discuss this when we meet.

Although I am trained to work with a wide range of issues, here are some areas in which I have a special interest:

Anxiety and Feelings of Being Overwhelmed

Anxiety is a normal response to various situations, often manifesting as worry, fear, or a general sense of unease. It can be triggered by traumatic events, social or workplace pressures, or life transitions such as divorce, bereavement, or sudden changes. Whilst experiencing some anxiety is normal, excessive or uncontrollable anxiety can have a significant affect on your mental and physical health, as well as your overall quality of life. Prolonged anxiety can result in the constant release of cortisol, a stress hormone that, over time, can weaken your immune system and contribute to other health issues.  Therapy offers a space to explore the underlying causes of your anxiety, which is an essential first step in managing it effectively.  By understanding its roots, you can develop healthier ways to cope, improving both your mental wellbeing and overall health.

Feelings of Depression, Sadness, Grief or Emptiness

Feelings of depression, sadness, grief, or emptiness are common emotional experiences that can significantly impact one’s quality of life. Depression, in particular, can manifest as persistent low mood, a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness or worthlessness.  It can affect your body, behaviour, and thoughts, leading to feelings of loneliness, fear, or guilt.  These feelings may be triggered by specific life events such as loss, trauma, or significant change, but they can also emerge gradually, sometimes without an obvious cause. Grief, too, can lead to deep sadness and a sense of emptiness, particularly after the loss of a loved one or a significant life transition.  Sadly, many people struggle with these feelings on their own for months, or even years, before getting professional help. Therapy provides the space and time to explore and navigate these complex emotions, helping you understand their origins and how they affect your day-to-day life. By addressing these feelings in therapy, you can begin to find relief and work towards regaining a sense of balance and purpose and feel more yourself again.

Coping With The Effects of Abuse and Trauma

Abuse is when the way others treat you becomes harmful to you. Trauma is when stressful events that you experience shatter your sense of security and make you feel unsafe, helpless or vulnerable. Immediately after a traumatic event, feelings of shock and denial are common.  In the long term, reactions may include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships, and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea leaving some people with difficulty moving on with their lives.  Therapy can provide a compassionate space to process the effects of trauma and abuse.  Rather than focusing on diagnosing what is 'wrong' with you, therapy involves working with you to reflect on what has happened and how it continues to affect your life today. Through sensitive listening and understanding, therapy helps you process these experiences, reducing the emotional and physical toll they may be having on your mind and body. In time, this can help you feel better about yourself and regain a sense of control and well-being.

Struggling to Come to Terms With Losses Such as Bereavement, Divorce, or Unemployment

Coming to terms with significant losses like bereavement, divorce, or unemployment can be deeply challenging. These experiences often bring profound changes to one’s life, disrupting a sense of stability and security. Bereavement  can lead to intense feelings of sadness, loneliness, guilt and anger. Divorce, similarly, can bring about a deep sense of loss, not only of a relationship but also of a shared future, leaving individuals to grapple with feelings of rejection, guilt, or failure. Unemployment can shake one’s sense of identity and self-worth, leading to anxiety, stress, and a sense of purposelessness.  These types of losses can be difficult to navigate alone, as they often evoke complex emotions that are hard to process. Therapy offers a space to explore these feelings, helping you understand and work through the impact of loss on your life. Through therapy, you can begin to process your grief, rebuild your sense of self, and find new meaning and purpose in life. While the journey through loss is never easy, working with a therapist can make it more manageable, helping you move forward with greater resilience and hope.

​Difficulty Making or Sustaining Healthy Relationships or Navigating Current Relationships

Relationships are a fundamental part of our lives. Whilst they can bring us a great deal of happiness and support, they can also be the source of psychological and emotional distress. Therapy offers a supportive and non-judgemental environment where you can explore and address problems within relationships, helping you find a way through these difficulties. It also provides an opportunity to explore and understand how your past experiences may be influencing your relationships and shaping the dynamics and patterns you encounter today. Therapy can be especially valuable during breakups or separations, assisting in the process of healing and rebuilding relationships.  By working to strengthen your sense of self, therapy can reduce the confusion and pain often associated with the relationships and behaviours we choose throughout our lives. Ultimately, this process can lead to a greater understanding of yourself, a deeper comprehension of your relationships, and a more grounded sense of your place in the world.

Identity Issues and Understanding Who You Are

Developing a sense of self, or identity, refers to the process of understanding and defining who you are as an individual.  This involves exploring who we are, what we value, and how we relate to the world around us. It’s a process that begins in childhood and continues throughout life, shaped by our experiences, relationships, and the challenges we face. However, for some, this process can be fraught with difficulty, leading to feelings of confusion, anxiety, and insecurity. Struggles with identity can manifest in various ways,such as uncertainty about one’s values, difficulty making decisions, or a sense of disconnection from oneself and others, all of which can contribute to emotional difficulties.  Therapy offers a supportive environment where you can explore issues related to identity, gain clarity, and develop a stronger sense of self.  As people do this they often find greater confidence, purpose, and the ability to navigate life’s complexities with resilience. Ultimately, a well-developed sense of self provides a solid foundation for personal growth and fulfilling relationships.

People-Pleasing, Prioritising Others' Needs and Struggling to Say No

People-pleasing is when individuals prioritise others’ needs and expectations over their own, often at the expense of their well-being. This tendency can stem from various roots, including childhood experiences and social conditioning, where praise and validation were given for being helpful or compliant. It may also arise from growing up in environments where meeting others’ needs was a way to avoid conflict or where individuals had to take on caregiving or mediating roles, leading them to habitually put others' needs before their own. Although often seen as a positive trait, over time, people-pleasing and over-giving to others can lead to challenges such as emotional exhaustion and difficulties in maintaining healthy relationships. Therapy offers a supportive space where your needs will come first, allowing you to  explore the underlying causes of this tendency, gain insight into how it affects your life, and develop healthier ways to set boundaries and prioritise yourself.  By working with a therapist, you can learn to assert yourself more effectively, build self-worth independent of others' approval, create more balanced, fulfilling relationships and embrace a more authentic, empowered way of living.

Navigating the Challenges of Parenting and Breaking Generational Patterns

Becoming a parent is a life-changing experience that often brings a unique set of challenges. Whilst parenting naturally involves striving to provide the best for one’s children,  the pressures can sometimes lead to stress and feelings of overwhelm.  It can also cause a loss or questioning of identity, a resurgence of old insecurities or the surfacing of unresolved issues from childhood.  These challenges may also highlight generational patterns that you might wish to address—not only to improve your own wellbeing but also to prevent passing them on to your children.  Therapy offers a much-needed breathing space to explore these challenges in a supportive environment, helping you to navigate them effectively.  By gaining insight into your experiences as a parent, you can break the cycle and develop healthier, more intentional ways of interacting with your children. This process not only models positive behaviours for their development but also empowers you and enhances your wellbeing and confidence along the way.  Whether you’re looking to improve communication, regulate emotions more effectively, or gain deeper self-understanding, therapy can support you in becoming the parent you aspire to be, fostering a nurturing environment where both you and your child can thrive.

Recovering from Harmful Therapy 

Most therapy experiences are beneficial, offering a supportive space for healing and growth. Thankfully, instances of harm in therapy are rare. However, when therapy does become harmful, it can lead to significant emotional distress and a loss of trust in the therapeutic process. Harmful therapy might involve breaches of confidentiality, inappropriate boundaries, or an approach that feels invalidating or dismissive. These experiences can feel particularly distressing, especially since they happen in a space meant to be supportive and safe.  In my practice, I am dedicated to providing a safe, empathetic, and supportive environment where you can process what happened, understand its impact, and work through the emotions it has stirred. My approach, informed by my own ongoing academic research into this topic, is grounded in empathy and sensitivity, ensuring that your past experiences are fully acknowledged and understood. 

Concessionary places may be available depending on your circumstances - please ask. 

Sessions last for 60 minutes.  Our sessions will start at the agreed time, so even if you are late for a session it will still end at the normal time and the full fee will apply. 

Weekly sessions can help maintain momentum and support progress; however, less frequent sessions are also available. We can discuss a schedule that works best for you when we meet.

Any cancellations within 24 hours of an agreed session will be charged in full, except in exceptional circumstances.  This is because I will have set aside the time for your session and will unlikely to be able to fill the space with such short notice.

My Approach

I am an integrative psychotherapist, meaning I draw from a variety of models, theories and practices to match the uniqueness of your situation.  

I work primarily from a foundation of Humanistic principles, guided by Rogerian person-centred theory, and incorporate into this psychoanalytic thinking, attachment theory, existential philosophy, phenomenology and transactional analysis.  

I have a particular interest in early life experience and the unconscious forces influencing our lives, as I believe that bringing these into awareness can lead to profound and lasting change.   I also draw on a wide body of knowledge from psychology, philosophy, feminism, spirituality, sociology, neuroscience and trauma and health research.  You don’t need to be familiar with any of these terms to benefit from therapy and, theories aside, ultimately what is important is you and your experience.

My approach recognises the lasting impact of trauma, stressful events, or challenging relationships, you may have experienced or witnessed. As such, my focus is on empathic listening, a deep curiosity about you and your life, and understanding and helping you work through your experiences, rather than diagnosing what is ‘wrong’ with you.​  

I also recognise the value of creative approaches in therapy. Exploring dreams, metaphor, imagery, stories, myth and symbolism can offer a meaningful way to express feelings, often leading to deep insights that might not be reached through words alone.  For those who find it challenging to express their feelings or feel that traditional 'talking therapies' are sometimes too limiting, incorporating imagination, objects, or art can provide an effective way of communicating, often resulting in 'light bulb' moments of understanding.

Fundamentally, I believe in the primacy of the here and now relationship between you and me, client and therapist.  There is ample research showing that what ultimately heals and brings about change are alive, exciting and meaningful relationships, and this is what we would seek to find and build together in the therapy space.  This is because our deepest emotional and psychological wounds often occur in relationships, so it follows that healing also takes place within relationships.  A strong, trusting bond between therapist and client creates the safety needed for genuine exploration and growth. In this safe, non-judgemental space, we can uncover important insights that foster personal development, particularly in areas such as self-esteem, confidence, and how you relate to others. 

The therapy room is a space where you can fully be yourself, perhaps for the first time—and see what unfolds when you do. It’s also a place to explore and experiment with new ways of communicating and presenting yourself to the world.  The therapeutic relationship is also a key factor in helping us to understand patterns in our lives that may be unhelpful or destructive and for working through these. This will lead to improvements both in your day to day life and relationships (with yourself and others) outside of the therapy room.

You can read more about my approach here:  https://www.angharadthomas.co.uk/my-approach

My Views on Mental Health

I do not assume that mental health issues are solely biological or the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain. Social, cultural, political, economic, and relational environments also play a significant role in shaping how we think, feel, and act.  

Intrinsic to providing mental health diagnoses is the belief, or worldview, that our behaviours and difficulties can be pathologised. However, I take an approach to mental health that recognises life’s various experiences can be challenging, and the emotional difficulties we encounter are often normal responses to these challenges.

I also believe that the symptoms we experience often carry deeper meanings.  By deciphering these and understanding their underlying messages, we can begin to ease symptoms and relieve distress, which facilitates deep healing rather than applying a temporary fix.

What is the difference between psychotherapy and counselling?

There is no one definitive definition of psychotherapy or counselling and the way psychotherapists and counsellors work can often overlap. Both use talking therapy to help individuals with emotional difficulties, but the training for each is different, with psychotherapy training, like my own, often being longer and more in-depth in order to rigorously prepare therapists to be equipped for clinical practice. 

Although the terms are often used interchangeably, there is usually a sense that psychotherapy is longer term and more appropriate for issues that are deep seated and rooted in someone’s past, whereas counselling may be shorter term and appropriate for a single issue of a more recent onset. In this sense psychotherapy and counselling can be regarded as opposite ends of a continuum, with some overlap and natural progression between them.

How do I choose which psychotherapist or counsellor to work with?

Both psychotherapy and counselling involve establishing a highly confidential relationship between therapist and client, where the client feels able to talk freely about whatever is troubling them. The idea is that by listening carefully and attentively the therapist can start to gain an understanding of their client’s experiences, help them to understand how they’ve arrived at this point in their life, and how they can move forwards if that is important to them. Through this process, people often find that something shifts or opens up—whether it’s a new way of looking at things or simply a different way of being. 

Given this (and the research supports this claim) the personal and relational qualities of psychotherapists and counsellors are often more significant to therapeutic outcomes than their academic qualifications or professional education. The amount of personal therapy in which an individual practitioner has engaged will play a crucial role in this. All UKCP-registered psychotherapists, myself included, will have had far in excess of four years of their own weekly psychotherapy with an experienced psychotherapist, ensuring a deep and nuanced personal understanding of the therapeutic process.

As such, I would suggest the most important this to think about when choosing a therapist, or between psychotherapy and counselling, is whether you feel the therapist is the right fit for you, whether you feel you can work with them and whether they have engaged in their own extensive personal therapy. For your safety, ensuring the psychotherapist or counsellor is qualified and a member of a professional body is also important. 

Most therapists expect a first session to be about establishing whether you feel you can work together. It's ok to see more than one therapist for a first session in order to make the right choice. This might take more effort initially however will pay off in the long-term if it means you find the right professional to work with.