About me
I’ll start with a confession. I think choosing a therapist is a bit weird.
You scroll through photographs of strangers, read lots of very similar-sounding profiles, and somehow have to decide which one you might eventually feel comfortable telling the things you don’t tell anybody else.
So I’ll try to make this bit as straightforward as possible.
I’m Michael.
I’m an integrative counsellor - which probably means nothing to you. Essentially, I’m trained in a number of different therapeutic approaches, but I don’t believe people fit neatly into models or theories.
People are much messier and more interesting than that.
You might be looking for therapy because something specific has happened. A relationship is struggling. You’ve lost someone. Work has become overwhelming. You’re anxious, full of shame, angry, drinking too much, questioning who you are, or finding being a parent considerably harder than the brochure suggested.
Or maybe nothing dramatic has happened.
Perhaps life looks pretty decent from the outside. You have a job, relationships, responsibilities. You get on with things. Other people might even think you’ve got your shit together.
And yet something isn't quite right.
That interests me.
Because I don’t think most of the things we struggle with appeared from nowhere.
We learn ways of surviving life. We learn to keep people happy. To achieve. To avoid conflict. To make people laugh. To stay in control. To switch off. To be useful. To not need too much from anybody.
Often those things work brilliantly.
Until they don't.
Therapy, for me, isn't about discovering what’s wrong with you. It’s about being curious about what happened to you, what you learnt from it, and whether some of the ways you've learnt to protect yourself are now getting in the way of the life or relationships you actually want.
That doesn't mean every session needs to involve excavating your childhood.
Sometimes we’ll talk about the past. Sometimes we’ll talk about what happened at work on Tuesday. Quite often the two turn out to have more in common than we initially thought.
I’m warm and compassionate, but I'm also fairly straightforward. I won't sit opposite you silently while occasionally saying “hmm” and asking how that makes you feel.
I'll listen. Properly.
I'll ask questions. I'll share what I notice. I might gently challenge you when I think there’s something worth looking at. And hopefully, as we get to know each other, there’ll be room for humour too. Therapy can involve difficult things without every minute of it having to feel heavy.
My job is to create the kind of relationship where you feel safe to be honest. Where the parts of you that normally get hidden, judged, laughed off, or pushed away can have some room.
And where we can try to understand them rather than immediately trying to get rid of them.
You don't need to arrive with a diagnosis, a perfectly articulated problem, or even a particularly clear idea of what you want from therapy.
You can just turn up.
We'll start there.
I offer a Free 15-minute, no-obligation call to see if we're a good fit.
Training, qualifications & experience
A fully qualified and registered Therapist with the BACP.
- CAPCB L4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling.
- QCF L4 Diploma in Information, Advice and Guidance.
- CAPCB L3 Certificate in Counselling Studies
Training modalities include:
- Person-Centred (PCA)
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
- Transactional Analysis (TA)
- Trauma-focused Somatic
- Internal Family Systems (IFS)
- 12 Step Recovery Facilitation
- Relapse Prevention
- Mindfulness
- Creative
My client work has been pretty varied:
I’ve worked therapeutically with young people trying to make sense of themselves and the world around them; people struggling with addiction; new fathers adjusting to one of the biggest changes life can throw at you; and people experiencing anxiety, depression and complex grief.
I’ve also supported people caring for their parents and living alongside Alzheimer’s - including the often overlooked experience of being the son, daughter, or family member watching somebody you love gradually change.
Different people. Different stages of life. Different reasons for walking through the door.
Life outside the therapy room:
I also came to counselling after a long corporate career.
I’ve worked at senior management level across learning and education, sales, marketing and advertising. I’ve spent much of that time managing teams, navigating relationships and working in environments where performance, pressure and people all collide
Sport has also been a big part of my life, including playing at a high level. So I understand something of competition, performance, belonging to a team, and the expectations we can place on ourselves to keep pushing and performing.
That experience is part of what I bring into the counselling room too.
Because we're not just the anxious person, the grieving person, the person struggling with addiction, the stressed executive, or the overwhelmed dad.
We're usually several of those things at once.
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
Other areas of counselling I deal with
- Parenting - Becoming / Navigating
- Looking after elderly parents
- Alzheimer's / Dementia
- Complex Grief
- Children of Alcoholics / Addicts
- Sports Related Issues
- Loss of identity, meaning or purpose
- Shame
- Loneliness and Isolation
Therapies offered
Fees
£70.00 - £95.00
Concessions offered for
Additional information
Concessions offered for:
- Students
- Trainee Counsellors
When I work
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