Hackney · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Anxiety counselling for Hackney
When a crush on the Overground platform at Hackney Downs tightens your chest, or rent and work worries keep you awake in a Dalston flat, a weekly anxiety counselling hour is where we slow that alarm down and make sense of it. Since Hove is roughly 97 minutes by car from Mare Street, sessions take place over secure video, and an in-person hour there can be added now and then.
The practical facts for Hackney
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Hackney by car
- About 97 minutes with clear roads (72.3 miles); longer at busy times.
- Free NHS talking therapy
- City & Hackney Talking Therapies
- Fees
- £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90, £120 for 120. The first 15-minute call is free.
- Registration
- BACP registered member, no. 109340 (check the register); UKCP student member in advanced psychotherapy training.
A crowded borough and a mind that won't settle
Hackney is seldom still. It was the third most densely populated local authority area in England at the 2021 Census, and on a weekday morning the Overground platforms at Hackney Central and Hackney Downs show it. For plenty of residents that energy is the point of living here. For an anxious nervous system, though, noise through a shared wall, traffic along Mare Street and the crush around Ridley Road Market can keep you braced all day. Money adds to it. In the 2025 deprivation figures, Hackney had the third-highest share of people in income-deprived households in England, and a short month can turn every bill or message from a landlord into a jolt of dread. Worry about health weighs on people too, especially while waiting on tests at Homerton University Hospital or caring for someone who is. Anxiety can show up as racing thoughts in the small hours, panic on a bus, a churning stomach before work, or a constant sense that something is about to go wrong.
Turning down the alarm, one session at a time
Anxiety is an inner alarm that rings too readily and keeps on ringing. In our first sessions we map how it works for you: what sets it off, what you feel physically, what you tell yourself in those moments, and what you've started avoiding, whether that's the Overground at rush hour, a crowded Saturday at Broadway Market or opening your banking app. Seeing the pattern laid out often takes some of the fear out of it. From there we work on settling the body as well as the thoughts, with practical ways to steady your breathing and attention that you can use on a platform or in bed at night. We also look at what keeps you on edge, which in Hackney can be very concrete: an insecure tenancy, uncertain work, or caring for someone with little money to spare. Counselling works on how those pressures land on you, so that you can meet them from steadier ground. If panic attacks or an old frightening experience sit underneath the worry, the Rewind Technique is one approach I sometimes use. You set the pace throughout, and we keep checking that the work feels useful to you.
What keeps Hackney nerves on edge
Crowds, platforms and packed buses
In one of England's most crowded boroughs, panic can catch you on the Overground or at a busy market, and avoiding those places soon starts to shrink your week.
Waiting on results from Homerton
Health anxiety can take over the days between a test at Homerton University Hospital and the letter with the results. That limbo deserves attention in its own right.
Homerton's talking therapy, by self-referral
City and Hackney Talking Therapies, run by Homerton Healthcare and once known as Talk Changes, takes self-referrals for anxiety, and you can use it while seeing me privately.
Support in Turkish and Kurdish communities
Derman, a Hackney health charity for Kurdish, Turkish and Turkish Cypriot communities, offers free counselling and welfare advice, which can matter when worry is tied to money or paperwork.
Free and low-cost support for Hackney
Through the City and Hackney Wellbeing Network, reached via Mind CHWF, you can join Core Arts on St Barnabas Terrace for music, horticulture, sport and creative learning, steady routines that can quieten an anxious week. Free counselling for young people with a Hackney home, job or college place comes from Off Centre, and East London NHS Foundation Trust runs the City and Hackney Crisis Café for moments when anxiety turns into crisis.
- Free NHS talking therapyCity & Hackney Talking TherapiesFree NHS talking therapy for anxiety, low mood and related difficulties. You can refer yourself, with no GP referral needed.
- If drinking or drug use is part of itCity and Hackney Recovery Service0345 144 0050Free and confidential.
- Local organisationMind in the City, Hackney and Waltham Forest (Mind CHWF)Mental health charity.
- Local organisationCentral London Samaritans
- Local organisationCentre for Better HealthLow-cost or fee-paying.
For gambling, the National Gambling Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 8020 133 (NHS gambling support).
Private counselling with me can run alongside any of these; you do not have to choose one or the other.
If someone at home is hurting, threatening or controlling you, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 2000 247.
If you need urgent help now
If you need help right now, please don't wait for a session.
Local drop-in crisis support: City and Hackney Crisis Café (check opening times before you go).
What people in Hackney ask before starting
Can I get anxiety counselling quickly in Hackney, or is there a waiting list?
Sessions with me can begin once we've had a short free call and found a weekly time that suits us both, and I'll be honest about availability. On the NHS side, City and Hackney Talking Therapies is free and accepts self-referrals, and you can use it during any wait or beside our sessions, provided both services know about each other.
Is there free anxiety support in Hackney I can refer myself to?
Yes. Homerton Healthcare runs City and Hackney Talking Therapies, which accepts direct self-referrals for anxiety or low mood. Through Mind CHWF you can join the City and Hackney Wellbeing Network, which links to groups and activities such as Core Arts. Off Centre supports young people, and Derman offers free counselling for Kurdish and Turkish communities.
I get panicky on the Overground. Would video sessions from Hackney work for me?
Yes, and from Hackney that is the practical way to meet, given the 97-minute drive or the multi-change train to Hove. You join from somewhere private, so getting to an appointment never adds to the worry. As the work goes on, we can plan small steps back towards the trains and places you've been avoiding, at a speed that feels manageable.
My anxiety is mostly about money and housing in Hackney. Does it make sense to see a counsellor for that?
Those worries are real, and counselling treats them as real. What it offers is help with the sleepless nights, the dread when a message arrives and the way worry spreads into everything else, so you can deal with the practical side more steadily. For welfare advice, Derman gives free help to the communities it serves, and Mind CHWF supports wider mental health across the borough.
How much do sessions cost, and is the first call free?
Sessions are £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90 minutes and £120 for 120 minutes, the same in person in Hove or by video. The first 15-minute call is free, with no obligation to book. There is no NHS referral needed to see me privately.
One quiet conversation to start, from Hackney
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.