Dr Helen Damon
Every professional displayed on Counselling Directory has been independently verified by our team to ensure they have suitable credentials to practise.
This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
I foster flourishing. I can support you to build a positive relationship with yourself; navigate loss, change, and big decisions; and identify your core personal values to live authentically and meaningfully.
I can support you to:
Build a positive relationship with yourself
Do you feel, or have you been told, that you’re somehow unacceptable or not living as you “should”? Are you a “people-pleaser” who fears others’ negative judgement? Perhaps others have criticised or doubted you. Perhaps this leaves you feeling guilty or ashamed, or suppressing parts of yourself.
We can work together to root out critical thoughts and feelings that don’t serve you. We can empower you to identify, express, and assert boundaries around your own thoughts, feelings, needs, and preferences. We can foster an internal sense of your fundamental worth, enabling you to treat yourself with compassion and respect. You can then constructively challenge yourself to try new ways of being.
Process and navigate loss, change, and big decisions
Have you experienced, or are you anticipating, a significant loss, change, or decision? Perhaps someone in your life has died or you’re contemplating the meaning of life in relation to death. Perhaps you’ve experienced or are considering a change in your relationship status or career. Perhaps you’re worried or wondering about the next stage of your life, or at a crossroads and torn between different courses of action.
You can speak freely and openly about your experience with me. We’ll take time to honour its significance. We can work together to understand how it’s impacting you and what it means for your sense of self. We can disentangle you from other people’s opinions and expectations, and from any wider social narratives, that don’t serve you. We can enable you to identify what it would mean for you to live your life well in relation to this experience.
Identify your personal values to live authentically and meaningfully
Are you questioning who you are, what matters to you, or the meaning of your life? Perhaps you’re feeling stuck in a rut, unfulfilled personally or professionally. Perhaps you’re struggling with living or working in a way that’s at odds with some of your principles, even if it enables you to meet your practical needs.
We can work together to enable you to identify your core personal values and filter out any inherited values that don’t serve you. We can then use your personal values to understand your experience of meaninglessness, dissatisfaction, or conflict, and guide your decisions and actions. This will foster flourishing in all areas of your life, enabling you to live as authentically and meaningfully as possible.
How will we work together?
We’ll work collaboratively, using the topic you raise at the start of each session as a jumping-off point for an exploratory discussion. We’ll be open and curious. We’ll follow and examine the thoughts, feelings and memories you experience, and the links and patterns we identify between them, as we go along, rather than sticking to a predetermined structure. This approach will enable us to develop a deep understanding of the roots of your experience and any unhelpful ways your past echoes in your present and limits your future. Equipped with this understanding, we’ll identify positive changes for you to make in all areas of your life. Our ultimate aim will be to effect lifelong change by enabling you to act as your own therapist – to be able to apply the knowledge and skills gained in our work together to maintain your own psychological wellbeing after our work ends.
Are you the right therapist for me?
The right therapist for you should feel safe and, I believe, also constructively challenging. They should support you to deepen and extend your self-knowledge and enable you to make positive changes in your life. To ensure you feel safe, I’ll meet you with warmth, empathy, and the utmost respect. I’ll check in with you about how you’re finding our work, and I’ll welcome your feedback. To ensure you feel constructively challenged, I’ll actively raise thoughts, questions, interpretations and different perspectives about the topics you bring. I’m not a “blank slate” sort of therapist: I naturally “talk with my face and hands” and I’ll use imagery, metaphor and humour (as appropriate) to express myself clearly and enable us to develop new ways of understanding your experiences.
It's the quality of the therapeutic relationship that has the biggest impact on therapeutic change. If you think I may be the right therapist for you, please email me using the link at the top of this page or at drhelendamon@gmail.com with any questions or to book a free Zoom call. This’ll give you more of a sense of what it’d be like for us to work together.
How long will we work together?
You can choose to work with me for however long feels helpful for you. Most often, people work with me for between three months and up to a year or more. Therapy’s an investment in yourself and an act of self-care, so please give yourself as much time as you need. I believe there’s no shortcut to achieving lasting therapeutic change; let’s get to the heart and roots of the issues troubling you and holding you back, not just skim the surface.
What’s my next step?
Email me using the link at the top of this page or at drhelendamon@gmail.com to book a free Zoom call, lasting up to 50 minutes. I’ll answer any questions you have about working together, and we’ll decide whether to book a first therapy session. I look forward to hearing from you!
Training, qualifications & experience
I’m a counselling psychologist registered with the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), an associate fellow of the BPS (AFBPsS), a member of the BPS Register of Applied Psychology Practice Supervisors (RAPPS), and a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).
I’m trained to doctoral level in several types of therapy (existential-phenomenological, person-centred, psychodynamic, and CBT). This enables me to tailor the way I work to best meet your therapeutic needs, preferences, and goals. As an existentialist, I believe being human presents us with big questions and challenges about the meaning of our life, especially in relation to our death, and about navigating our capacity to act in relation to the limits of what we can know and control. I value opportunities to work with people engaging with these fundamental questions. As a person-centred therapist, I believe human beings have an innate tendency towards self-actualisation; we strive to live authentically and meaningfully. I value opportunities to support people to live their best lives. Working with people in this way is authentic for me and something I find profoundly meaningful.
Alongside my independent practice, I work as a visiting lecturer on the professional doctorate (DPsych) in counselling psychology at City St George's, University of London, an associate supervisor on the professional doctorate (DCPsych) in counselling psychology and psychotherapy at the Metanoia Institute, a fitness to practise panel member and registration appeals panel member for the HCPC, and as the external examiner for the DPsych Counselling Psychology at the University of South Wales.
I offer academic supervision to psychological practitioners, review journal articles for Counselling Psychology Review and Counselling Psychology Quarterly, collaborate with senior lecturers in science education at King’s College London to conduct research and training on reducing stress and promoting wellbeing, and deliver clinical supervision to Mental Health First Aiders at the Francis Crick Institute. I've advised the Clinical Director of Cruse Bereavement Support on establishing clinical placements and Mental Health First Aid and been featured as an expert in psychology in The Guardian, The Observer, and on Refinery 29.
I’ve previously worked in the NHS, including in hospitals and specialised child and adult bereavement services; the charitable sector; and academia, including as a senior lecturer and lecturer on professional doctorates in counselling psychology at City St George's, University of London and Regent’s University London, and as an external examiner for courses at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.
My qualifications and training include:
- DPsych Counselling Psychology - Regent's University London
- MA Play Therapy (Distinction) - The University of Roehampton
- WPF Therapy Certificate in CBT Skills - WPF Therapy
- Intensive Filial Therapy Training Programme - The Family Enhancement & Play Therapy Center
- BSc (Hons) Psychology (First Class) - The Open University
- BA (Hons) Literae Humaniores (Classics and Philosophy) (2:1) - The University of Oxford
- Death and Dying (Distinction) - The Open University
- Bereavement Training - Barts Health NHS Trust
- Suicide Awareness and Prevention - The Maytree Centre
- Coordinating Supervisor Skills (Part One) - The British Psychological Society
- Supervision Skills Certificate - The British Psychological Society
- Moving Your Practice Online - Online Therapy Institute
Member organisations
school Registered / Accredited
Being registered/accredited with a professional body means an individual must have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by their member organisation.
The HCPC are an independent, UK-wide health regulator. They set standards of professional training, performance and conduct for 16 professions.
They keep a register of health professionals who meet their standards, and they take action if registered health professionals fall below those standards. They were created by a piece of legislation called the Health Professions Order 2001.
Registration means that a health professional meets national standards for their professional training, performance and conduct.
Areas of counselling I deal with
Therapies offered
Photos & videos
Fees
£120.00 per session
Free initial online session
When I work
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morning | |||||||
| Afternoon | |||||||
| Evening | |||||||
| Night |
I offer weekly sessions to individual adults (18+) in the morning and early afternoon on Mondays and Tuesdays at Queen Victoria Street (EC4N) and Wednesdays at London Wall (EC2M)
