Lewisham · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Anxiety counselling for Lewisham
Anxiety counselling for Lewisham, for the worry that hums under rent day, a shift rota that keeps changing or a seminar at Goldsmiths you've dreaded all week. Once a week, by secure video, we look at how your anxiety works and practise ways to steady it. It begins with a free 15-minute call.
The practical facts for Lewisham
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Lewisham by car
- About 85 minutes with clear roads (65.5 miles); longer at busy times.
- By train
- From Lewisham, change at London Bridge for trains towards Brighton and Hove.
- Free NHS talking therapy
- Lewisham Talking Therapies, 020 3228 1350
- 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.
Rent day, rota day and a town that never goes quiet
If you rent in Lewisham, the date the money leaves your account can set the tone of the whole month, and news of a rent rise can have you redoing the sums every night.
If your shifts at Lewisham Shopping Centre come out on a rota, the days before it's published fill up with calculations. Work that follows you home on your phone, from an office reached by the DLR or a desk near Cannon Street, means the evening never properly starts. If you study or work at Goldsmiths in New Cross, deadlines, presentations and marking tend to pile into the same few weeks. Then there's the noise: a town centre and market busy for most of the day, a flat where you hear the neighbours, and nowhere that's truly quiet. Over time the body keeps its own account. By mid-morning your jaw is tight, and sleep arrives late and leaves early. A nervous system kept on duty for months on end will usually start to show it in ways like these.
Mapping the worry, then making room around it
We start by working out how your anxiety runs, without blame: what tips it off, what happens in your body, and what you then do to get relief. It might be re-reading an email five times before you send it, or steering round the busiest part of the town centre. Each one buys a few minutes' calm and then charges interest. Alongside the mapping, you'll practise a few ways of bringing your body down that work on a crowded platform or in a meeting, until they're quick to reach for. Where the worry is about something real, like money, we separate the practical problem from the spiral around it, so the problem becomes something you can act on. When you feel ready, and only as fast as you want, we plan small steps back into the things anxiety has taken off your list. Palpitations, chest pain or questions about medication belong with your GP, and counselling can carry on alongside whatever they suggest.
Lewisham pressures, and the local help beside them
When the rota hasn't come out
Shifts at Lewisham Shopping Centre that arrive late or change at short notice, and the low hum of never quite knowing your own week. We work on living alongside that uncertainty.
Seminar dread in New Cross
Presenting work at Goldsmiths, being asked a question in front of the room, or a hand-in date that won't let you sleep. We practise steadying your body for exactly those minutes.
An adviser for the benefits side
SEL Mind Connect offers welfare benefits support and one-to-one mental health advisers. Referral comes through your GP, South London and Maudsley or Lewisham Talking Therapies.
Counselling from two pounds
Quaggy Community Counselling Service, at Orchard Hill in SE13, offers low-cost sessions from two pounds each to adults living in Lewisham or Greenwich. If fees are part of the worry, it's a real option.
Free and low-cost support for Lewisham
For free NHS help with anxiety, Lewisham Talking Therapies, run by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, takes self-referrals on 020 3228 1350. The Quaggy Community Counselling Service and SEL Mind Connect are the other local doors worth knowing. Private sessions with me can sit alongside any of them, and you don't have to choose just one.
- Free NHS talking therapyLewisham Talking Therapies020 3228 1350Free 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 itNew Direction drug and alcohol recovery service (Lewisham)020 8314 5566Run by Change Grow Live (CGL). Free and confidential.
- Local organisationLewisham Outreach Service (Together for Mental Wellbeing), Lewisham VCSE Cooperative
For gambling, the National Gambling Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 8020 133 (NHS gambling support).
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.
The South London NHS Mental Health Crisis Text Service (SLaM) is another option: WhatsApp 0303 330 1511 or text 80991.
What people in Lewisham ask before starting
Does Lewisham Talking Therapies take self-referrals for anxiety?
Yes. It's the borough's free NHS talking therapy service, and the self-referral line is 020 3228 1350, with no GP appointment needed first. Waits vary. If you'd rather choose who you see, start sooner or keep going without a set number of sessions, private counselling is the other route, and nothing stops you using both.
I'm anxious about travelling. Would I need to come to Hove from Lewisham?
No. From Lewisham the room is about 85 minutes by car, so we'd meet by video from the start, and nothing about the work depends on you travelling. If getting to Hove later becomes something you want to do, as a step you've chosen, we can plan it together, perhaps as a 90-minute session once you've built up to it.
I'm studying at Goldsmiths and panic before seminars and deadlines. Can anxiety counselling help with that kind of pressure?
It can be. We'd look at what happens in the hours before a seminar or a hand-in: the thoughts, the racing heart, the urge to put it off. Then we practise ways to steady yourself in the room and plan small steps, like speaking up once in a seminar. Weekly video sessions can fit around your timetable, and any support you already have through your course can carry on alongside.
How quickly can anxiety counselling begin if I'm in Lewisham?
You don't need anyone to refer you. Once you've booked the free 15-minute call, you'll hear exactly when I could offer a regular time. In the first session we only map how your anxiety works, and nobody asks you to face anything you've been avoiding, so it's a gentler start than you might expect.
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.
Bring the worry, even half-formed, to a short call
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.