About me
Hi, I’m Hywel, a qualified Gestalt and integrative therapist offering online counselling and psychotherapy across the UK.
I have a particular interest in working with intergenerational trauma, social anxiety, identity and authenticity. I work with people feeling the lasting impact of traumatic experiences that have significantly affected their mental health such as: feeling left out or isolated, discrimination, low-self esteem, and the long-term emotional effects of disabilities, including long Covid.
Many people come to therapy feeling as though they've spent their lives adapting to meet other people's expectations, without ever having had the opportunity to discover who they really are, to discover their true selves. I support people who may find it difficult to say what their story is, or to explain their lives to others.
You might be feeling anxious or depressed, burned out or troubled by shame, and that might be affecting your relationships with other people, leading you into addiction behaviours, or leaving you feeling really stuck. On the other hand, you might not be sure of what you’re feeling: and you don’t need to know precisely what’s wrong to start in therapy.
Alongside exploring your immediate concerns, I draw on Gestalt Therapy and Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy to help you understand the different parts of yourself with curiosity and compassion. Rather than seeing difficult thoughts, emotions or behaviours as something to fight against or flee from, we’ll explore how and what they may be trying to protect, creating greater self-awareness, healing and lasting change.
I became a therapist because therapy helped me to make sense of my own life, and to cope with not feeling seen, so I understand how difficult this can be. Therapy with me will involve being curious about what’s going on for you, right from the most obvious things to the finest details. Sometimes the small things turn out to have a huge amount of meaning.
If you would like to book an initial, free discovery call, or if you have any questions, then I would love to hear from you.
Training, qualifications & experience
- Diploma in Gestalt Counselling from the Gestalt Centre in London.
- Internal Family Systems (IFS) Level 1 Training from the IFS Institute [ongoing, due to be completed October 2026].
- Certificate in Humanistic Integrative Counselling, CPPD, London.
- MSc, Development Studies, Birkbeck.
- BA, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Oxford University.
I am also influenced by other approaches, including psychodynamic practices, Emotionally Focused Therapy, and the Neuroaffective Relational Model. I am a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).
Member organisations
BACP is one of the UK’s leading professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy with around 60,000 members. The Association has several different categories of membership, including Student Member, Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP, Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Accred) and Senior Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Snr Acccred). Registered and accredited members are listed on the BACP Register, which shows that they have demonstrated BACP’s recommended standards for training, proficiency and ethical practice. The BACP Register was the first register of psychological therapists to be accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). Accredited and senior accredited membership are voluntary categories for members who choose to undertake a rigorous application and assessment process to demonstrate additional standards around practice, training and supervision. Individual members will have completed an appropriate counselling or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but they won’t appear on the BACP Register until they've demonstrated that they meet the standards for registration. Student members are still in the process of completing their training. All members are bound by the BACP Ethical Framework and a Professional Conduct Procedure.
Accredited register membership
The Accredited Register Scheme was set up in 2013 by the Department of Health (DoH) as a way to recognise organisations that hold voluntary registers which meet certain standards. These standards are set by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).
This therapist has indicated that they belong to an Accredited Register.
Areas of counselling I deal with
Therapies offered
Fees
£70.00 per session
When I work
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Further information
I know from my own experience that it isn’t easy to find the right therapist who suits you. So before anything else, I offer a free 20-minute phone conversation for you to tell me a bit about yourself and what brings you to therapy, and to ask any questions you have about how we might work together.
During the first session, we will talk about what has brought you to therapy - your story – and we will begin to look more deeply at your experience, and how it all comes together, during the next few sessions. After five or six sessions, I like to review together how the therapy is going – discussing what has gone well, what has been more difficult, with the idea of making any adjustments that are needed so the sessions work better for you.
I believe that it is also important during therapy for us to consider, gradually, how what happens in the therapy space might practically be applied in the rest of your life.
Each session lasts for 50 minutes, delivered online via video call. People choose to have online therapy for many different reasons - for some, it can be preferable to face-to-face therapy, as it allows for more flexibility, and it means that you can take the session from somewhere you feel comfortable, without having to worry about travel time or costs.
