Dr Dane Duncan Mills

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you” ~ Maya Angelou.

CLIENT TESTIMONIALS 

“Dane is by far the best therapist I've had the chance to work with. His multi-faceted approach at the intersection of the best practices in therapy is helping me make progress on topics I've hardly been able to address before. I feel confident about Dane's ability to help me navigate the challenging topics of my life and my ability to move to a better place with his assistance.  As a gay man, I often feel like therapy is somewhat aligned with my reality. Dane's affinity and experience working with the LGBT community has put him in a position to make me feel understood like never before. Although I could keep going on a while, the last thing I'll add is that Dane is very organised. Above and beyond his sessions' notes, he also provided me with a comprehensive document explaining his approach, practice and success stories, he sends me a detailed follow up email with any resources he's recommended I look into after the sessions and communicates very effectively when it comes to scheduling or confirming the upcoming session. I can't recommend him enough.”

"Dane’s constant curiosity, empathy, ability to listen carefully without judgement and acknowledge and encourage me have had a hugely positive impact in my life. He’s allowed every session to be guided by what I believe is important to discuss on the day - I feel like a participant rather than a patient. With the right support we can face challenges that otherwise seem overwhelming; my time with Dane has proved that. Dane’s helped me move from feeling scared and alone to empowered and able, recognising my own resilience and strength. The things I’ve learned through our conversations are helping me with my own challenges and to be a better support to others. I’m beyond thankful for the role Dane has played helping me reflect, learn and face difficult conversations with myself and others. Dane has my highest recommendation."

"Making contact with Dane was simple and straight forward, exactly what I needed and what drew me to enquire with him in the first place. He was every bit as approachable and responsive as I'd hoped, I felt very secure. Contact was the result of searching for someone with his areas of expertise. This doesn't guarantee the right relationship fit though, so it was truly reassuring and a relief to find that ours was easy to build; intuitive, responsive, inspiring - everything you want from the relationship, really. Dane was open about finding ways to focus our conversations; ways that would work for me, and with me. I was so grateful for the honesty, as I might otherwise have struggled to articulate what I was trying to achieve. From that moment on our sessions have been all the more brilliant, with lightbulb moments, back-and-forth and a really good flow. I was specific in my search for someone who would understand the queer experience and neurodivergence. It's been so valuable to find someone who works with both areas, as there's never any doubt in their understanding or empathy. Several sessions into our work together I was walking taller, with more resilience and the tools to practice self care, authentically. I've no doubt that Dane got me there, and no previous therapy has put me in that place. I'm truly grateful to Dane, and look forward to our next conversation already!"

"I began working with Dane to overcome issues I was having with my relationship to gender. Being something of an “overthinker”, I had found that I’d struggled to make progress with other therapists in that area. Dane’s approach worked very well for me, helping me out of a period of anxiety, depression and burn-out. He has helped me to begin a new chapter of self-determined exploration, guided by a deeper sense of self-awareness."

“I’ve had experiences with other therapies and therapists, and my time with Dane is the first I’ve found entirely worthwhile and beneficial. I feel listened to and understood, and there’s a clear desire to continue to develop and deepen this understanding. It feels like a particularly safe space for me and that’s down to Dane’s empathy and communication skills. I’d highly recommend him”

"At a time when I was struggling with isolation after my partner decided to move back to Spain after losing his job to Covid, and working through a process of reevaluating my life through a new lens of autism and ADHD, Dane’s approach was a real lifesaver in helping me reflect on my coping strategies, strengths and values. He was easy to reach out to, and online sessions suited me really well. His warmth and kindness helped me feel accepted and safe at a time when I’d had some horrific homophobic ableist online abuse that triggered old trauma. I feel that a good connection with a therapist such as Dane can be helpful not just in the moment, but at later times when we think back to those sessions and how helpful they were."

"Working with Dane provided a supportive space where my husband and I could have those 'difficult' conversations, and could discuss our fears and anxieties in a way that had proven near impossible outside of a therapeutic environment. Dane's support helped us model how to have these potentially conflict-inducing conversations (rather than perpetually avoiding them). We also learnt how many skills and strengths we already had." [LGBT Couple]

“Originally I would have preferred a woman as a therapist as I thought that they would understand me, as a woman, better. How wrong was I! After meeting Dane for the first time I found that he was very empathetic, sensitive and professional to my needs. He listened, was non judgmental and I felt at ease within minutes of talking to him about ‘God and the world’. The coping strategies he provided me with are a great tool to use when I feel anxious or unsure about myself. I have no hesitation in highly recommending Dane as a therapist."

"Dane skilfully picked out the significant parts and helped build my story in a clearer way, summarising and reflecting back with clarity, the jumble of thoughts I had just landed on him. Dane made links between parts which I had never connected together but which helped to make sense of certain thoughts and beliefs. Every week Dane checked in about the process of the sessions: giving us the opportunity to think about whether the direction of the conversation was helpful or not (and why); and how I wanted him to facilitate our conversation. Dane offered a very safe, non-judgemental therapeutic space. Dane attended to difference in relation to my experiences, rather than influencing me in accordance with his own experience. I felt heard and understood by Dane who empowered me to make sense of my curiosities and armed me with tools to support me going forward. 4 months on I often refer back to our conversations and feel they have had a truly positive impact on my ability to cope."

"I initially reached out because I was at a bit of a crossroads in my life and had this "cloudiness" in my mind that I was unsure of how to process and unsure of how to move forward with my life. Dane immediately pin-pointed and helped navigate me through those issues and was able to help me understand why I was feeling the way I was and hone in on what I thought the issues were. The focus was very much on myself. Why was I feeling the way I was, how to deal with those feelings. The conversations were fluid, deep, introspective, Dane helped me look inward for the first time in my life and I cannot thank him enough for that.”

"I reached out to Dane via email to begin therapy sessions after realising my gender identity was not what I thought it had been for a long time in order to have some guidance in exploring more of my uncovered self. He was so approachable, made clear what the process would be up front, and speaking to him during the sessions feels very unforced and natural. He always brings the topic back to the focus that is set collaboratively at the beginning of the session to ensure that I gain what I need out of it, but doesn't hurry me along, which feels important when I need time to find my own words to express how I feel internally. Dane expresses active listening, is clearly interested in the words I choose for my experiences, and takes care to never make me feel othered rather than a whole, unique, interesting and worthwhile person deserving of respect, but also reflects back his unjudgemental observations clearly and in ways I can take them on board."

"Reaching out for therapy can always seem a bit daunting and nerve racking, but Dane's approach made it feel very easy and natural. He listens with great attention and either has a great memory for detail, or takes great notes - because he calls back on stories (even on specific words) that we talked about in sessions from a while ago. This makes it feel like a friendly, long conversation rather than a set of individual, broken sessions. He makes you feel listened to and understood, while providing useful challenges and nudges."

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ABOUT THERAPY WITH ME

I aim to provide you straightforward and jargon-free online therapy sessions from a highly qualified Clinical Psychologist, registered with the HCPC and who has over 15 years NHS experience. Whether you're feeling stuck, adrift, unrooted or simply seeking the right path, our sessions offer a safe space to find your way. But it's not just about overcoming challenges; it's also a place to kindle your strengths. After all, you've already come so far.

Finding the right therapist can be daunting. People often choose Clinical Psychologists over other options like psychotherapists, life coaches, or counselors due to their breadth and depth of training and diverse experience in multiple therapeutic methods. We are trained to help people with complexity. This wealth of expertise allows us to tailor sessions to align with your needs and aspirations.

Traditional therapy isn't for everyone, with concerns about complex terms, labeling, silence, stigma, and delving too deep into the past. Narratives of Us is different. Your priorities take centre stage in every conversation. I believe that you are not defined by your issues; the person is the person, the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem. It might be good to mention, I specialise in relationship therapy and talking about gender and sexuality.

I offer a free 10-minute telephone chat so you can sound out if our fit would be right. Sometimes it's good to vibe check a therapist! I can send a free welcome pack with information and resources to help you to decide. If I can't help I can also send some recommended people. So please do slide into my professional DM's: 02039847939 / NarrativesOfUs@gmail.com / Book an intro call: https://shorturl.at/hqWX4 . 

MY THERAPY VALUES

The Problem Is The Problem
I firmly believe that the person is the person and the problem is the problem. When we separate the problem from the person we have more power over an issue, put things into context, find more meaning and feel less stuck.

A Preventative Focus 
In the face of the (unacceptable) chronic governmental underfunding, cuts and austerity in health services it’s hard to find access to support that prevents things getting harder, broader, more complex, more risky. We all deserve early, more preventative support for our hopes and futures.

Your Right To Define
I invite you to define the problems, troubles, issues or concerns in your terms using your words, expressions and language - in order for it to be close to your personal lived experience. Your worldview might be scientific, but it might be spiritual or cultural. I do not use psychological buzzwords or short-hand labels out of manuals.

The Values In Your Stories
The stories that my clients have entrusted me with have at once been testimonies of hardship, loss, trauma or violence, but also ones of reclamation, overcoming, resilience, survivorship, resistance and strength. I help people to shed light on what they hold in high regard. These values can become a compass to guides us as a basis for knowing how to go on in a way that feels right for you personally.

Cultivating Hope & Resilience
I have seen how “Hope is not a trait inside people. Hope is something we do with others" (Kaethe Weingarten). I firmly believe hope can still grow even when despair does not reduce. I strive to create a space to help people to weave hope by connecting with their own resources and to others in their chosen families and communities as a way forward through the storms of life.

Kindness
As a person who uses therapy myself, I especially do not lose sight of how important the quality of the therapeutic relationship is. Compassion is unfortunately often ‘out of stock’ in the many burnt-out services that support wellbeing, and I really get how this is something very much needed when talking to a complete stranger about your biggest vulnerabilities!

Informed Curiosity
It’s important for me to take both an informed and also curious stance towards my clients. I seek to know enough about important issues to share ideas (be it current issues about Cancer, Depression, Anxiety, BAME, LGB, Trans, Common Couple Patterns…) yet also want to learn about your own unique experience, culture and life expertise.

INDIVIDUAL WORK

Here's a fact worth highlighting: Time and time again, the number one most evidenced research about therapy is that it is not the style of therapy that is the most important factor in improving things, but the relationship, how well you connect together as therapist and client, the ‘fit’. It is the relationship that is the best marker of good outcomes. This is why therapy should be with someone, not at someone. It is why I believe therapy is a space that can be shaped by us both. I offer assessment, share my sense-making openly with you, and think about existing and new ways of responding to the problems life throws at us based on your expertise and skills as well as my own. I help people to shed light on what they find important, what they value, and what they hold in high regard. Whilst I also offer my perspective too, your values become a compass that guides us as a basis for knowing how to go on in a way that feels right by you. I use feedback measures to fine tune our work together.

RELATIONSHIP THERAPY

If my relationship therapy was a cocktail: the techniques and ingredients I use come from Compassionate Communication and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy poured into a specialty glass of Narrative and Systemic Family Therapy approaches to couple work, with a twist of Queer Theory. I also take a pinch of salt with attachment-pop-psychology. So here's 5 little tasters:

1. MULTIPLE-PERSPECTIVES. It is normal for different people in a relationship to have different hopes for in therapy which may seem contrasting. For example, different ideas about whether hard work is worth it; to change things or to accept things; or the hope to stay connected, evolve or go your own ways.
2. SHARED VALUES. Your values will be specific to your relationship, and these will be different to those of your therapist. Unlike some relationship work, I make it clear that the values of your relationship are at the centre of our conversations, not my own.
3. TAILORING SESSIONS. Relationships come in a many different shapes and sizes. Talking about desire, love, intimacy, sex, connection or talking about what's okay and not okay takes: these things take courage and trust which is different for everyone. I tailor sessions to each unique relationship. Ensuring safety, carefulness and non-judgement is therefore very important.
4. RELATIONAL FOCUS. That relationship therapy is fundamentally different to individual therapy. Ironically, most approaches to relationship therapy are focused on helping each completely separate individual in the relationship to better communicate their individual wants and needs to another completely separate individual. However in reality things are not that simple. What we do not do and what we do not say also shape other people's sense of self and their hopes and dreams, in ways we might not yet comprehend. This might be because of our families of origin, our cultures or our social world. The relationship dance is important to understand. Be it, the dance of taking space and coming closer; or the very different dances of love and desire. 
5. WIN-WIN SOLUTIONS: That good relationship work, is not about being more individual, it is about getting clear on how we want our actions and words to shape other people, how our shared stories of self are built, becoming more and more mindful of how our partners experience themselves when they are in our presence and what everyday signals we wish to be sending them. Rather than helping a single person advocate and promote solely for their own needs like a competition, I believe in a radical approach: I help each person in the relationship to identify their own hopes for how they each wish to make the other feel, and to cheer each other on. In a nutshell, I help relationships to create win-win solutions, not win-lose solutions.

NEXT STEPS - FIRST SESSION

It can be daunting, but please do not hesitate to send any big or small hesitations and curiosities my way and I will get back to you within 24 hours. I offer a free 10-minute telephone consultation so you can sound out if our fit would be right. You can book this under "intro calls" above. I send a free welcome pack with information and resources to help you to decide.

Whenever you are ready we can set up an initial session in which I can hear your story of what brings you, and we can get clear on your potential goals for therapy to create a focus. There is no obligation to set up more sessions, we can take it at your pace. Frequency and duration of sessions is something we can tailor together.

• Leave me a message on: 020 3984 7939
• Email me on: NarrativesOfUs@gmail.com
• Book an intro call: https://shorturl.at/hqWX4

6 MINI STORIES ABOUT ME

My name is Dane. I am a hardworking, Northern human, from working-class roots. I am a big animal lover, coffee-snob, geeky and outdoorsy type, who loves to climb.

1. A concert that stands out for you? - A baritone singer called John Grant, at the O2. He sings on themes of resillience and the pain of growing up in a heterosexual world, especially the song called Glacier, such an amazing metaphor: “This pain it is a glacier moving through you, carving out deep valleys and creating spectacular landscapes”.

2. What is a favourite meal that stands out? - Tricky because I’m a foodie… I would have to say a little vegan place I went to which served grilled artichoke with aioli, followed by a Buddha bowl with shiitake mushrooms, and an awesome brownie to finish! Now I’m hungry.

3. A skill you are learning? - I’m learning to cook a broader range of vegan dishes, and to try be more adventourous in the kitchen. I am not great at following recipies… I’m more haphazard.

4. A group you belong to? - I found my people in a climbing community, we climb… we fall… we climb again. Climbing takes me to places I would never otherwise go.

5. Whats the last film you loved? - A film called Laurence Anyways really moved me, it is directed by a fellow member of the gay community, Xavier Dolan, about a long term relationship in which one person transitions gender and affirms their identity. Bittersweet.

6. What is on your bedside table? - I am a bookworm, so I have… “Trans Love, An Anthology of Transgender and Non-Binary Voices”, by Freiya Benson… “How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X Kendi… “The Velvet Rage” by Alan Downs… and Find Me, by André Aciman. I really should focus on just one…!

Where talking to a Male is prefered / Despair / Couples counselling / Hopelessness / Family Issues / Low Self-confidence / Loss / Hardship Stuckness / Feeling Lost / Down / Stress / Worried / Cross / Feeling Sad / Living with Labels (such as "generalised anxiety disorder", "low self-esteem", "depression", "phobias", "OCD", "anxiety", "post traumatic stress", "phobia", "panic attacks").

Allied

Bisexual, Gay, Intersex, Lesbian, Non-Binary, Queer and Transgender Allied.

I offer a free 15 minute telephone conversation to sound out if our fit would feel right, feel free to call me on - 020 3984 7939.

Sliding Scale Fees

I offer a fair sliding scale for my clients, which you get to choose on an honesty basis depending on if you feel your income is low, medium or high compared to your counterparts living in your area earning the same as you. A standard psychology session is typically 50 minutes. I offer concessions on the scale to those with a low income, students, key workers and unemployed clients.

Individual Sessions 

Sliding Scale: Starting from £120 to £150.

Couple or Family Sessions

Sliding Scale: Starting from £150 to £200.

I currently have space to take on new clients, please do get in touch and I will send you my slots for the month ahead.

What do people like about online video therapy?

Online therapy is no longer a second-best option, research proves it is evidence-based as effective, and is something different but not inferior to, face to face talking:

• Personalise your own space as needed, with your own soothing strategies: for everyone it’s different, maybe for you it’s blankets, candles, a plant, insense, cushions for a relaxing atmosphere… or maybe it’s a desk and whiteboard to build a working mindset.
• Take therapeutic support with you when travelling, moving home, or country.
• Avoid the added commute around work or the school run!
• It is a practical way to invite a friend or family member to the session - they can sit with you in the room, or drop in online with a shared screen. This might be to gain their out-of-the-box perspective or if you wish to share aspects of your story.
• Fury friends and whiskered family members are welcome here, in fact research shows stroking a cat or dog lowers stress levels, isolation and helps to provide emotional support and comfort.
• Bring a cup of tea or coffee just how you like it for the session. In many cultures, talking over a cup of tea helps to provide focus.

If some of the description examples below resonate with you, then Narratives of Us might be an awesome fit:

• I’m heartbroken. My partner and I are stuck in a rut. The spark is gone.
• Lockdown is making life like a pressure cooker.
• I’m in a dilemma… my heart says one thing but my culture says the opposite, what do I do?
• Something difficult to describe happened to me… it’s after my attention.
• I’ve been given a label but it seems far away from my unique experience. I mean… there’s anxiety, there’s anxiety and there’s anxiety, right?
• I get angsty, the world seems terrible and even unsafe… little things play on my mind.
• There’s a tidal wave of uncertainty out of the blue, and I want solid ground.
• I have the grey tickles of worry and stress… the black curtain of really low mood.
• I have reason to be really cross and in moments I feel like shouting really loudly.
• I’m beat. I feel beaten down on. I don’t have the energy.
• Someone really important to me is no longer in my life how they were.
• Even in a place of lots of people, loneliness is there.