Helen Wills

Not all grief begins with a bereavement.

You may be coping with the death of someone you love, a cancer diagnosis, chronic illness, chronic pain, a relationship breakdown, parenting challenges, redundancy, retirement, an empty nest, or a future that no longer looks the way you expected.

These experiences can leave you feeling anxious, low, overwhelmed, emotionally exhausted or disconnected from yourself. Perhaps you've always been the person others rely on - the one who copes, keeps going and holds everything together - yet something now feels too painful, too complicated or too heavy to manage alone.

My role is to offer a safe, thoughtful and compassionate space where you can bring whatever is going on, without fear of judgement. Together, we can make sense of what you're carrying, understand the patterns shaping your relationships and emotional life, and find a way forward that feels more manageable, authentic and hopeful.

I work with the grief of bereavement and other losses, anxiety, chronic illness, cancer, chronic pain, CFS/ME, fibromyalgia, relationship difficulties, parenting challenges and major life transitions. I also have experience supporting clients affected by addiction, including alcohol use - whether that relates to your own behaviour or the impact of someone else's addiction on your life and relationships. Stress, loneliness, trauma, loss and relationship difficulties can all contribute to unhealthy coping strategies, and therapy can offer a space to understand what sits beneath them.

Alongside my Gestalt training, I am a trained Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist. IFS is a gentle but powerful approach that helps us understand the different parts of ourselves that emerge during difficult times. You may recognise parts that become self-critical, perfectionistic, anxious, emotionally shut down, people-pleasing or overwhelmed. Rather than fighting these parts, therapy helps you understand what they are trying to do for you, and what they need in order to lessen their hold on you. Approaching yourself in this way can create lasting emotional change, greater self-compassion and more freedom in how you live and relate to others.

My work is also attachment-informed, which can be especially helpful if you find yourself repeating painful patterns in relationships, struggling to express your needs, feeling emotionally unsafe with others, or finding it hard to trust yourself. Often, current difficulties make more sense when we begin to understand the earlier experiences that shaped how we learned to cope, connect and protect ourselves.

Before becoming a counsellor, I spent many years in senior corporate leadership roles. That means I understand the pressures of professional life too: high levels of responsibility, perfectionism, stress, burnout, caring for others while neglecting yourself, and the shock that can come when illness, grief or personal upheaval collides with a life that has always looked successful from the outside. Many of the people I work with are used to coping alone, functioning well for others, and carrying a great deal - until something happens that asks more of them than coping alone can manage.

I work online across the UK and in person from my therapy rooms in St Albans, Hertfordshire. Whatever brings you to therapy, I offer a warm, non-judgemental relationship in which you can feel genuinely heard and supported. I offer a free introductory call so we can talk about what's bringing you here, and you can decide whether I feel like the right therapist for you.

My specialisms

I also specialise in chronic pain and illness. Emotional pain locked in the body can cause physical pain - I will help you identify triggers and approaches to reduce both. 

Chronic illness can be very challenging to live with, impacting every aspect of your life. I can support you to identify strategies for managing the emotional fluctuations that come with the onerous or debilitating physical ups and downs of living with autoimmune conditions or incurable diagnoses. 

What I can help with

I work with clients experiencing bereavement and loss, anxiety, depression and low mood (including post-natal depression), self-esteem issues, addiction,  parenting problems, trauma, infertility, pregnancy loss, and divorce.

I also support people living with incurable illness, including cancer. It can be particularly difficult to share how you feel about your health and your life with people around you, so this is an important time to have a space where you can say exactly what you think, and work out what you need.

I can help with all kinds of relationship difficulties (including problematic family or workplace relationships). Understanding yourself better, and having strategies to manage relationships can help you deepen connections and get more joy from your family and your job. 

Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a gentle, evidence-based approach to therapy that helps you understand and work with the different “parts” of yourself. For example, you may have an inner critic, a worrier, or a part that feels hurt or overwhelmed. Rather than trying to get rid of these parts, IFS helps you build a compassionate relationship with them, recognising that each one has developed to protect you in some way - even if you have other parts that don't like them!

At the heart of IFS is the idea that everyone has a calm, wise core (often called the “Self”) which can lead the healing process. In therapy, I will support you to access this inner resource, so you can listen to your parts with curiosity instead of judgment, and help them release the burdens they’ve been carrying.

Clients often experience IFS as a respectful, empowering process that brings greater self-understanding, emotional balance, and a deeper sense of peace and fulfilment.

Gestalt Therapy

As a Gestalt therapist, I will work with what’s happening for you right now and how your past impacts how you feel and respond to life’s challenges today.

I use a variety of creative tools and take an integrative approach to help you unlock and process difficult feelings. I can work with sand tray work to help identify inner child issues that are not in conscious awareness. I will support you to discover more about yourself and how you relate to the world and the people in your life. 

Equally, if you just want to talk, that's what we'll do. 

What does therapy feel like? 

Therapy is about the relationship we build together. You are the expert in you; I'm the facilitator who helps you notice your process and decide what you want to change - if anything. To that end, my goal is to provide a safe space for you to feel comfortable with embracing discomfort as you grow and learn about supporting your own needs.  

Starting therapy can feel daunting, so I recommend you talk to more than one therapist before choosing someone to work with. This is why I offer an initial free chat so I can understand what you want to work on, and you can get a sense of whether I'm the right therapist for you.

Once you start working with me on a weekly basis, we will review the process regularly to make sure therapy is still helpful, or if changes need to be made.