Astrid Hoang-Brown

  We all need help sometimes, and sometimes family and friends are not what we need.

  Making the decision to seek help can be the start of a solution, or accommodation of the issues that we       all have to deal with.

  My personal and professional experience coupled with my training, means that I may be able to help you    on your journey.

  I am not easily shocked, and feel that confidentiality is very important..

  My experience has informed me, that sometimes help is best given  individually or within a group, but     also  in a combination of the two.

  I also see couples to help with difficulties within their relationship.

  We will discuss what you need and what will be most beneficial to you.

  I can help you with difficulties to do with issues that come up at the different stages of life:e.g. leaving  home, starting a relationship, family life, bereavement, work issues, depression, and sense of personal worth, children leaving home,  retirement...
I am very much aware of the issues that come up with multi-cultural, multi-lingual experiences, which I have worked with, extensively.

  In addition to my work in private practice, offering group, couple and  individual consultations, I  practiced for many years, within the context of mental health,  such as Mind, the Richmond Fellowship, in Therapeutic Communities, and Day Centres settings, as well as ,in agencies offering psychotherapy to young people, such as the Crouch End Consultation Centre for Young people, the Hackney Counselling Centre for Young People.

I have also counselled  adults and older adults, over 65.

Currently in addition to my psychotherapy work, I supervise counsellors and psychotherapists, both individually and in groups of therapists within organisations.

My therapeutic work has included sessions with people art activities (writing, drawing, painting etc..) or who might be helped to use art both to unblock their creativity, and to use these activities to explore their difficulties.

• How does  counselling/psychotherapy help?

  It gives you a safe space, for you to talk,  on a regular basis, ie: once or more a week, with the assurance of confidentiality.

  You will have someone- a therapist -  and if we work together: it will be me, who, by listening with great      care to you, to  what you  are expressing  verbally, non verbally,  will undertake  to help you  explore  your feelings, and thoughts   better understand them , as well as , think together, in some depth, with you, about the  issues that have led you to seek help. This,  hopefully., will  enabled to find a  resolution of your difficulties.:  and in doing so, help you  to  feel better about yourself, and your life..

  We will endeavour  to help you  become  clearer, in your own mind, about the  reasons for your difficulties, in order for you to  feel, and to be gradually less  burdened by them, and  so ,begin  hopefully,  to  realise your potential,  more fully, as a person,. which would  positively alter your outlook on yourself, and all aspects of your life.

This process  of understanding yourself, helps because  it  gives you "a handle", on your life, a greater sense of your own agency,  and strategies to cope  better. with situations, and relationships
.It can also offer  different non- destructive models of relating, than those, from your past,.

This in turn hopefully  helps  ease  feelings such as :  anxiety,  panic, confusion, depression, or anger , and many more ...


  I tend to work  on a longer term basis,  rather than shorter , with people who  come to me for help, as difficulties that have arisen in a person s life, have not developed over night, but over years, often including childhood and teenage  years .So if it has taken years to develop a problem, it cannot be fully resolved in a few weeks.
In my experience, I have found that therefore a longer period of therapy,  can really maximise the chances of making a real difference to someone  s quality of life, by tackling the roots of the difficulties..

   However, I  have practiced, and have  therefore experience of  short term counselling.

When  we meet, for the initial consultation, we  will ,of course, discuss together  fully - and, with my guidance- decide on the most appropriate form of help,( and set up  short term therapy if this is deemed to be the most helpful)
  I might   sometimes at first,  suggest meeting twice ,  if  a longer time would be helpful  ,to ensure that I am providing you with  the best possible way forward.

• Work with older adults:

I have a particular additional interest in, and experience of offering help to older adults, over the age of 65 , as this time of life brings its then unavoidable issues; such as ones mortality, the loss of close relationships, family, friends, loss or decrease in potency, loss of one s familiar role in family or life or of social status.

• Work with young people

I also have helped people in their teens,  late teens, and young adults, and have developed  an in depth understanding of  the particular issues facing people in that age group, and also,  of the particularly intense pressures that are placed on young people now :  an increase in  tests, and exams,  leaving home, going to university, and bearing the cost of studies, issues with sexual identity, sexual difficulties, starting a family, starting work, lacking confidence,   being depressed, feeling alone, isolated, overwhelmed , anxiety states, panic attacks ..... it can often be  a very difficult  and  anxious time of life, as there are  many new  changes, challenges, that  a human being  will be facing at that time, in their life, when still only very young..

• Work with codependancy

I have a great nterest and experience  in  helping  individuals and    couples with the difficulties that come up in codependant  relationships and the specific  therapeutic techniques needed to help with unhelpful entranched patterns of relating..

• Work with adopters/adopted

I have worked with the often very difficult and painful issues that adoption brings up, both for the adopter, and the adoptee.

• Trauma work

Emotional trauma is also an area of human experience that is of particular concern and interest to me, and the way in which whilst it may resemble and share some common points with psychosis, it is also very different

Its  therapeutic treatment, in order to promote the recovery and healing from trauma requires some very distinct responses and techniques from the therapist.

.These are:  An affirming response frequently more important than an interpreting one , bearing witness, offering a deep acceptance, a capacity and willingness to be in touch with ones own pain and terror and to then allow that of the patient to reach one emotionally, whilst not being phased, or unduly overwhelmed by it, and to compassionately offer ones own willingness to "feel with" the patient, his/her pain and dreadful isolation, and terrifying break down in trust.

The attunement is much the same than that of  a mother, when she is being ordinarily "devoted" :willingly allowing  herself to" be filled" with the cries  of her young baby and letting  herself feel the pain contained in those.. in order to understand and know what will  best suit and help her baby.. what will make her baby feel comfortable, again, what will again and again be needed from her  by the baby.

• Conjoint Group and Individual  Psychotherapy

For over 25 years, I  have been practising  a form of group therapy which combines both individual and group sessions: Following an initial period of  one to one sessions,  and  of preparation of an appropriate duration,  on an individual basis, a person is then offered one( or two) individual sessions per week, as well as  one ( or two) group therapy sessions per week.In  experiencing both,  they will have the opportunity to be supported in a  specifically  tailored way, thus receiving a very  rounded and wholistic form of  psychotherapeutic help  that both  these settings  offer when combined, in  this particular  way.

  How it works, and  what are the  benefits?

I have found this to be a very beneficial combination of "tools"  resulting in a  therapeutic method, which helps an individual in quite  a unique way. The reason for this is that it is very close to "real life"! and to the reality that,  we, human beings at the beginning of life, first in babyhood, and subsequently, in childhood, have to deal with, while we grow and are helped -in the best of cases- to develop the necessary close and intense trustful attachments first  to our mother , then to our father and siblings, while  receiving  from her , all the  support , protection and  nurturing we all  need to survive and thrive.

This more often than not, wont have been so, for a person who feels that they need help, often desperately so.

This  early experience of being born, babyhood with a protective mother, then the gradual introduction into the family "group" then into the wider world, and entry into tyhe social group of school...is symbolically represented, by first a period of  one to one sessions with the therapist- me, if I see you,  followed by entry into the group, discovering family members, then school, teachers, peers etc.. which in therapy, is entry into the group, and  the gradual making of relationships with  various members of the  therapy group . Often in the majority of cases,  in fact, they will , in aperson s mind, remind them, and so, represent,  members of  their family, their  siblings , or their  mother and , or their father, or other care takers, followed by at a later stage:( when of school age):the second social group  ie: school. Foe many this will have been a traumatic , or at least emotionally painful time, which by being reexperienced  in the safe context of the therapy group, as well as having the space all throughout therapy, to have the sole attention, and focus, from the therapist, both in the group, and outside it, ie in the individual session.

Because the therapist is present in both settings, it offers the possibility to clients for being supported by them (the therapist) as well as by their peers in the group.

One of the many  healing factors in a group setting, is to realise that other people have felt the  same feelings... a patient is enabled to actively learn from others, eg: how another person has  survived, that they've successfully faced and overcome difficulties.
  Due to the therapist being there, with them ,  in both settings, the client through the back and fourth motion   individual to group,  group to individual, regular, reliable,  is given  a very valuable continuity of experience, which theyn have probably missed when a child..

They  have the hope and opportunity to receive support, encouragement, validation, due to  their individual time being reliably offered, and safeguarded, (with mother, in the past,  here with therapist: me) unlike probably what they   experienced in childhood..  It is  a kind of "special time" which, in therapy  is  offered and secured. As well of course as  is the group: this therapeutic symbolic " family" is solid, ongoing , reliable, safe, so can accept, contain and facilitate the expression and working through of  the intense  feelings ,  a person would often not  have been able to express , and even to feel, in childhood,  and therefore also,  not  in their adult life.

In my many years of practicing this conjoint form of therapy, I have found that it does
seem  to be very helpful indeed for most  people , from the least to the most troubled,  suitable for very young  adults to  adults, in their sixties, or seventies,  who are seeking help, for the whole range of  emotional difficulties that can befall a human being.. In providing an ongoing,and as gradual as needed,  an opportunity for  in- depth explorations of feelings and of  issues, through the rich variety of relationships ,  offered by  their being a group, ie the  presence  and participation of members in the  group ,( up to 8 to 9  ) the  possibilty for safely re- experiencing the problematic relationships  and situations that have motivated their request for help,but   at a  pace, that is, this time round,  emotionally manageable .

it opens up  possibilities for the  working through of difficulties, and provides an individual with  the opportunity of   learning or ( re-learning) to make relationships, in a safe and holding envronment,whereby changing unhelpful lifelong  patterns, as well as giving a" real life" comprehension as to he why   and the  how of  the issues have come about and have become  often disabling problems.
it enables a person to emotionally " take risks",  ie try out new strategies, and that will foster change and emotional growth  and health. A person may discover who they really are, feel greater self esteem, confidence in themselves and able to make use of their attributes, qualities and talents, which were hidden, or not available, because of anxiety, or depression.The combination of individual and group sessions in the same week,  seem in my experience of the people that  I have helped, to have promoted changes that a sole individual or sole group   approach might not have offered, at least not in the way the combined  |G and I does.

It might give a  space to a person  who   could  for instance, have  been unable to get in touch with their needs , and so,  to be helped  over a period of time, to healthily meet those, as well as reducing guilt, and shame,strengthen the capacity to   feeling  entitled to do so.

Work with carers, and young carers

I have offered counselling  to help adults, often elderly,  who  carry the weight of responsibility  for caring for a handicapped child, or an ageing    vulnerable spouse, or an  elderly mother, and similarly young people, as young as 15 year olds,  who look after an infirm parent, or younger siblings, or a handicapped  or ill  sibling or family member, or parent. These carer will often become exhausteds, because they cannot not carry the heavy weight oflookig after a loved one, depsite the fact that an adult owes anoither adult nothung in reality,but that carers will tend to feel in an intractable labirynth

I offer an initial 30-minute telephone/Zoom consultation free of charge.

Thereafter, my fees are:

£70 for individual sessions
£40 for group sessions
£90 for couple sessions

Both the fees, and the therapeutic framework for sessions will be fully  explored, explained, discussed  and agreed during the initial session first one  or  first two sessions.

• Languages spoken:

As well as English, I offer psychotherapy and supervision in fluent French, and to a lesser degree in German

• Location of my Practice:

- a 15 mns walk from Walthamstow Central Underground station on the Victoria Line,
or
- a  5 mns bus journey: 212, 275 from Walthamstow Central Underground station, on the  Victoria Line
or
- a 6 to 8 mns  walk from Wood Street  train station : from Liverpool Street Overground , Liverpool St -Chingford line: 16 mns by train.

• What will happen in the first session ?:

After having emailed me or left a message on my answerphone, I will contact you, and  we will  have a conversation on the phone, during which  we will  decide together whether or not you would like to book an initial face to face consultation and for me to see whether I can offer you  any help.The first session  will be  an opportunity to talk together  in greater depth about the difficulties that decided  you to seek help, and to work out the best ways that I,  may be able to help you. It will also be a time for you to see if you feel comfortable with the  kind of therapist that  I am and  with the way that I work, It is important that you feel at your ease,  and for both of us to  see whether we can work together.
Having been a psychotherapist for many years, I have  helped people with many different issues and difficulties.