About me
Hi, I’m Hywel.
I became a therapist because therapy helped me to make sense of my own life. It helped me to cope with not feeling seen while dealing with trauma and social anxiety. I could also see people struggling all around me, but not talking about it – people need a safe space to start talking, and we live in a culture where being authentic to yourself is just plain difficult, especially if you feel like you don’t fit into any of the boxes.
I support people who may find it difficult to say what their story is or to explain their lives to others, people who feel like there is something stopping them from connecting with other people and with the world, but who you might never know are struggling from looking at them. People who grapple with how to be authentic to their own true selves – the person they feel themselves to be inside – while remaining in close relationship with 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 addictive behaviours or leaving you with feelings of being really stuck. On the other hand, you might not be feeling much at all or not be sure of what you’re feeling, and I believe that you don’t need to know precisely what’s wrong to start in therapy.
My practice is trauma-informed, climate-conscious, and Covid and disability conscious. Therapy with me involves us 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 an incredible amount of meaning. I offer a combination of support and challenge to help you work through what you’re struggling with, find words for those things that feel so difficult to explain, and to connect with meaning and groundedness in your life.
If you’re ready to start sharing what’s troubling you, then let’s talk.
Training, qualifications & experience
I am qualified in Gestalt Therapy, with a Diploma from the Gestalt Centre in London. I am also influenced by other approaches, including Internal Family Systems, 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
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.
