Oliver Bettany

Explore the deep roots of soulful thriving and embrace the profound adventure of your life.

As a counsellor and ecotherapist, I provide a kind and non-judgmental space to talk, deeply and honestly, about the things which really matter, the stuff it’s scary to say out loud, the thoughts and feelings that, if we let them out of the box, we fear will be misunderstood, criticised and attacked by our loved ones.

You have more strength than you know. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of knowing where to start, and then taking the first step.

“Ollie is a great listener and I was enabled to feel myself and recognise so many things within myself. His use of IFS was extremely helpful to me and I realise that I have a better relationship with myself as a result. After two or three sessions I felt deeply connected to the work we were doing and I never felt time pressure. It was an hour of each week that I looked forward to (rather than feeling like something that I had to do). When Ollie suggested a second set of sessions I was able to answer yes without hesitation knowing how useful it would be. I am an internally calmer person and able to manage any recurring anxiety, pressure and self-doubt.”

“I first worked with Oliver in 2016 when I was going through a particularly dark and confusing time in my life. Depression was the condition which I had been diagnosed with and the condition which I am so grateful to say that Oliver has helped me to recover from. The sessions with Oliver were gentle enough for me to want to go back each week, but challenging enough for me to feel as though progress was being made. Oliver always worked from a place of spiritual understanding and always brought humanity and kindness to our sessions.”

“I found Oliver's sessions extremely helpful. He gave me clarity from the very first session and it felt like a lot of weight had been lifted. The best thing I got out of my time with him is the steps of action to improve my life, I took action on everything and I can now say that I feel much better, less stress and my anxiety is very rare. I just suggest you try 2 or 3 sessions with Oliver and you will see the benefits.”

Home is where we start from
For many of us, by the time we reach adulthood, our relationship with our inner child - the part of us that still feels and acts like a child - is very complicated. Counselling can help us get back in touch with the deeper needs of this part, the aspect of ourselves that we often need to listen to in order to leave home psychologically, stop acting out and self-sabotaging, and thus bring about balance and meaningful change in our lives.

Why? Our modern lives are busy, often overwhelmingly so, and we are often compelled to grow up too fast and so discount our inner child's basic needs for nurturing, safety, creativity and fun. How frequently do we get an opportunity to take some time out to properly check in with ourselves, explore what's really going on for us, deep down? And yet this kind of simple self-care is so important for our wellbeing.

Most of us maintain dozens of relationships - with parents, children, brothers, sisters, friends, lovers, colleagues... hundreds of busy interactions with other people every single day of our lives. But how many of these moments nurture our deeper selves and feed our fundamental need for security, belonging and connection with other human beings?

We all have thoughts and feelings that we fear to share with our loved ones. Sometimes it just gets to be too much and we're compelled to reach out to someone who is not a part of our everyday life but who understands and cares about us nonetheless. Until we're ready to create a society that has this kind of care and understanding built right into its fabric, counselling provides an important and life-enhancing experience of support during the more challenging chapters of our journey through life.

Counselling
Central to my approach to counselling is my belief that every one of us has the basic and inborn capacity to grow fully into ourselves, to become the person we were meant to be in this life, and that this is a life-long process. What this translates to in relation to the counselling I offer is that I know that deep down you are an expert in you. You hold the key which will unlock the door to reveal the best way forward for you.

So what am I good for?! Well, it can take a lot of time and space to begin to connect with this inner expert, in our journey through life we learn to throw up an awful lot of barriers to this kind of inner connection. I will work with you to create the conditions necessary for you to navigate these barriers and tap into the deep expertise you possess: together we will create a safe place from which you can begin to make contact with what is underlying the challenges you're experiencing right now. I can help you find the key.

Ecotherapy
I offer 90 minute ecotherapy sessions in the Dartmoor National Park near to Buckfastleigh in South Devon. 

This offering takes as its starting point an appreciation of the web of relationships that exist between the personal, social and ecological spheres of our lives. It offers practices and processes that enable us to explore the ways in which our individual identities are deeply rooted not only in human world but also in the more than human world of nature. When we see ourselves purely as individuals who are basically separate from everyone and everything else in the world then we are missing a fundamental part of the larger story of human being. We become both alienated from nature and disconnected from an important aspect of our human nature.

Working with men
Developing a healthy relationship with our masculinity is a potent force for positive transformation. Men's Work aims to help men to reclaim this positive force for change in their lives.

I've been actively involved in Men's Work for ten years, having co-founded a Sussex-based men's group called The Silvatici (“The Men of the Woods”) in 2012 and more recently become involved with A Band of Brothers, a voluntary organisation which mentors young men from the criminal justice system. Over the years I have also supported many men through the most difficult chapters in their lives in my one-to-one counselling practice.