Paul Carslake

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MSc, MBACP
Available for new clients
Available for new clients

This professional is available for new clients.

London SW11 & SW4
Available for new clients
Available for new clients

This professional is available for new clients.

About me

Hello – and thanks for visiting my profile page. I provide what I hope is thoughtful and engaging talking therapy via Zoom, as well as face-to-face work in London at Battersea Rise SW11, and Lion Yard SW4. If you've got something on your mind that's been bothering you, then perhaps now is the time when you finally choose to start talking about it.

In brief
I see my job as a counsellor as helping people find ways of dealing with the difficult stuff that comes at us during our lives. It could be an immediate crisis, or long-running family or relationship issues, or a deep anxiety that seems to come from nowhere, or the gathering storm clouds of depression, or perhaps an issue or a sense of unease that has been nagging at us all our lives that we have never felt fully able to address.

My approach
Empathy, warmth, and, sometimes, just a bit of gentle humour: these are three aspects which I feel characterise my approach to counselling. There is science behind this too. Most clinical evidence on the effectiveness of talking therapies shows that the relationship between therapist and client is the biggest single factor in bringing about change – whatever ‘brand’ of therapy is being used.

More about my style of therapy
The therapy I offer falls broadly into the ‘psychodynamic’ category. This means we can think a bit about your past and explore how things might be getting repeated in the present. And it also means we can use aspects of the therapy room conversation to provide clues about patterns of relating in the world outside.

Some past experiences are so painful that talking about them can bring back overwhelming emotions: you may prefer simply to 'not go there'. Instead, we can work on how those experiences may still be affecting your life today, and how we can help you to get a bit more control over this.

By observing and noticing how we feel, behave and react in response to certain situations, we can ask whether it has to be like this, every time. Experience shows us that nothing in our lives is fixed forever. Our capacity for change is a constant surprise.


SOME PRACTICALITIES...

Getting started
If you drop me an email or text, we can fix up a 40-minute phone (or Zoom) session. There is no fee for this session, and it's a chance for you to talk about what’s prompted you to seek counselling, to ask me any questions you have, to think about how many sessions we'll need, and see if we there is availability that works for us both. Following the call, if you decide to go ahead with counselling, we choose a suitable day and time for the sessions, and book in the start date.

How many sessions?
We agree this between the two of us. We can have a focussed set of sessions (say just a half dozen or less) aimed at just one specific issue. However, the full benefit of talking therapy tends to play out over a longer time-frame. A set of 12 or 16 sessions, with the opportunity to renew, is a popular option. Some patients then choose to shift to an 'open-ended' contract with no specific end date.

Payment methods
There is no need to book a whole bunch of sessions in advance. Payment is made at the end of each session (I just send you a link to make a secure payment online). You can, of course, choose to end your counselling at any time.

Training, qualifications & experience

  • MSc in Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy; Birkbeck, University of London
  • Cert Higher Ed. in Psychodynamic Counselling and Organisational Behaviour; Birkbeck, University of London
  • BA (Hons) Philosophy, Politics & Economics; Keble College, University of Oxford
  • MBACP - registered member of the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy
  • More than 400 hours as a listening volunteer at Samaritans
  • Six years' experience as a therapist in a community counselling centre in south London and in private practice.
  • Author of Psychology: A Crash Course (Ivy Press, Brighton, 2019);
  • Book Review: Workplace intelligence: unconscious forces and how to manage them, Psychodynamic Practice, 2021.
  • Interim Chair of the BACP Private Practice Executive Committee (2022 to 2023)

Member organisations

BACP
British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP)

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

British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy
Accredited Register Scheme

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.

British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy

Other areas of counselling I deal with

Millennials: the special challenges facing those from their mid-20s through to their early 40s, looking at issues around family, workplace, relationships, commitment, choices, expectations and satisfaction.

Photos & videos

Fees

£55.00 - £58.00
Free initial online session

Health Insurance/EAP

  • Cigna
  • WPA

Additional information

Online Therapy (via Zoom)
£55 per hour (off-peak, after 10am, before 4pm)
£58 per hour (peak hours - before 10am, after 4pm)

Face-to-face therapy
£85 per hour (Central London, City, West End)
£68 per hour (Clapham & Battersea, off-peak, after 10am, before 4pm)
£71 per hour (Clapham & Battersea, peak hours, before 10am, after 4pm)

Outdoor Therapy (Walk + Talk)
£55 per hour
(Battersea Park, Clapham Common, Wandsworth Common, Tooting Common)

When I work

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
Morning
Afternoon
Evening
Night

Monday to Friday: Earliest sessions start at 7.30am, with the final sessions of the day starting at 6pm.

Further information

Here are a few thoughts on how I work.

The free introductory session: this lasts up to 40 minutes, and is an opportunity for you to talk a bit about what's brought you to think about counselling, as well as to get a sense of what it's like actually talking to a therapist about what's going on in your life right now. It's a chance to get a sense of what the counselling relationship might feel like - and perhaps to 'try out' a few different counsellors on your shortlist.

Starting counselling: if you decide to go ahead, then the first couple of sessions will usually involve a look at your family history, so we can get a sense of your story right up to the present day, and some of the factors that may have helped to form your attitudes, beliefs, ways of dealing with others, or dealing with adversity. 

You're in the driving seat: as the sessions progress, what we talk about each week is driven by you. Rather than me saying 'let's focus on this today', the content of the session will be determined by you. There may be something pressing that has happened during the week, or which you have been mulling over - or you may come to the session with no specific idea of what you may talk about. Invariably, some kind of thought will bubble to the surface, and provide a clue as to what's on your mind, which will lead us into the work for that session.

Three related areas of experience: therapy draws on three related areas of experience that we all have: our earlier formative experiences with our families; our current lives and relationships with the people we know today; and the relationship that evolves with the therapist in the room (or over Zoom). These experiences from 'back then', 'out there' and the 'in here' tend to play off each other. If, for example, I developed a dislike for a man with a moustache in my early life, and my therapist happens to be a man with a moustache, then the 'back then' may be playing out with the 'in here.' 

Making and breaking connections: recognising patterns of behaviour or set ways of thinking can sometimes reveal old habits that are past their use-by date. What may have been a useful defence earlier in our lives may not be relevant any more, but we still use it.

Making sense of emotions: in a similar way, events in our lives today can sometimes trigger an unexpected emotional response. Why does someone go ballistic when someone else arrives late for a drink in a bar? Maybe 10% of this is ordinary irritation at being kept waiting around. But 90% could be left-over anger from a childhood spent waiting for an unreliable parent to turn up on time. Recognising these kinds of connections can help explain our feelings, which in turn makes them feel more controllable. 

A few milliseconds: the time it takes to be able to stand aside from ourselves and observe what's going on - to notice the emotion building and then let the thinking part of your brain kick in, noticing the surge of emotion and realising it may have nothing to do with what's going on in the moment.

Keeping the lid on the box: sometimes, we have unpleasant memories that we want to leave undisturbed, and with good reason. Rather than looking at those experiences themselves, we can talk about how they may play out as triggers in your life today. So we can then very carefully and sensitively start to approach looking at the triggers, and try to manage them so they impinge less on your life.

Of course, reading these brief notes you may not feel any of this applies to you right now - this is a very general set of thoughts aimed at giving just a flavour of how I think and work. Please do get in touch to talk further.

76a Battersea Rise, London, SW11 1EH

2 Lion Yard, Clapham, London, SW4 7NQ

Type of session

In person
Online
Phone

Types of client

Adults
Older adults

Online platforms

Zoom