Woking · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Anxiety counselling for Woking
If anxiety has started to set the limits of your week in Woking, perhaps steering you away from Victoria Place on a Saturday, or keeping you checking a symptom for days before a hospital appointment, you can look at it with me over secure video. You can begin from a room at home, with no label or referral needed.
The practical facts for Woking
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Woking by car
- About 73 minutes with clear roads (57.5 miles); longer at busy times.
- By train
- From Woking, change at Clapham Junction for trains towards Brighton and Hove.
- Free NHS talking therapy
- Mind Matters Surrey, 0300 330 5450
- 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.
Appointments in four towns and a mind on alert
For most outpatient tests and scans, Woking residents currently travel to Ashford, Camberley, Guildford or Chertsey, so a single test can mean working out a route and time off work before you even know the result.
For someone already anxious, each of those steps is another chance for the mind to run ahead. Other worries sit closer to home. A Saturday in Victoria Square or the Peacocks centre can feel like too many people and too few exits. Students at Woking College, and the parents beside them, can carry exam dread for months. Working from home in Goldsworth Park or Byfleet, with the street empty by mid-morning, leaves long hours in which nothing interrupts a worrying thought. The body usually signals it first: a racing heart in a queue, or a stomach that churns before an ordinary plan. It can help to think of this as an alarm set too sensitively, and that sensitivity is what we work on.
Turning the alarm down, a little at a time
We start with the specifics of your week: the exact moment worry climbs, what happens in your body, and the habits you've built to make it stop. Often the things that bring quick relief are the ones that keep anxiety going, such as checking a lump again, rereading a hospital letter, ringing someone for reassurance, or leaving the shopping centre by the nearest door before the panic peaks. We look at each of those without blame, because each one has helped you get through. Then you practise a few ways of calming your breathing and steadying your attention that work wherever you are, in a waiting area in Chertsey or on a bench by the Basingstoke Canal, and we rehearse them together until they become second nature. Underneath, we look at what feeds the alarm: perhaps a family where worrying was how love was shown, or a health scare that shook you. When you're ready to reclaim something you've been avoiding, the steps stay small and you choose them. New chest pain, palpitations or breathlessness should go to your GP before anything else, so they can rule out a physical cause.
Four Woking worries, and where help sits
Tests in another town
A scan in Camberley or a clinic in Ashford, then days spent planning the route and imagining the result. We separate what needs action from what is only worry.
Too many people at once
Avoiding Victoria Place or the Peacocks centre since a panic there. We settle your body first, then plan small returns, only if you want them.
An exam year at Woking College
Whether you're the student or the parent, months of revision dread can eat into sleep and appetite. Your anxiety counts in its own right.
Still waiting for Mind Matters Surrey
If you've referred yourself to Mind Matters Surrey and are still waiting to hear, private sessions can start in the meantime, and you can carry on with both once theirs begins.
Public health figures for the area
These are local authority figures from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. The figures describe a whole population over a period, not any one person.
Free and low-cost support for Woking
In Woking, free NHS help for anxiety comes from Mind Matters Surrey, the county's arm of NHS Talking Therapies; ring 0300 330 5450 to refer yourself, no GP visit required. Catalyst Community Connections runs wellbeing groups in Woking, which can be a gentle way back into company. Seeing me privately can sit beside either of them.
- Free NHS talking therapyMind Matters Surrey0300 330 5450Free 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 iti-access0300 222 5932Free and confidential.
- Local organisationCatalyst Counselling: families, friends and carers (Catalyst Support)
- Local organisationSearchLight Counselling and Therapy
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.
Locally, the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS FT Mental Health Crisis Helpline is on 0800 915 4644. Local drop-in crisis support: Woking Safe Haven (check opening times before you go).
What people in Woking ask before starting
Can I contact Mind Matters Surrey about anxiety without going through a Woking GP?
Yes. You can phone Mind Matters Surrey yourself on 0300 330 5450; it's free, and it's how NHS Talking Therapies works in Surrey. Ask how long the wait is likely to be. Seeing me privately needs no referral either, and nothing stops you having both, one for now and one for when their appointment comes through.
Waiting for a hospital appointment in Chertsey, Guildford or Camberley makes me anxious for days beforehand. Is that something counselling can help with?
Yes, the worry that wraps itself around an appointment is something we can work on directly. We trace the loop of checking, searching online, asking for reassurance and brief relief that keeps health fear going, and we plan the practical side, such as the route and who might come with you, so that logistics stop feeding the dread. A new symptom still belongs with your GP; counselling works on the alarm around it.
Do I have to travel to Hove for anxiety counselling, or can it all be online from Woking?
It can all be online. From Woking the Hove room means a 73-minute drive or a change of trains at Clapham Junction, and if travel is part of what frightens you, there's no reason to start there. If at some point you want to make that trip as a goal, we can build towards it slowly. If you never do, that isn't a failure.
Is there a wait before anxiety counselling can start from Woking?
The free 15-minute call can be arranged whenever you feel up to it; there's no form and no referral. On that call you'll hear plainly when a regular video slot is free, and you're under no obligation to book. You don't need a name for the anxiety before we talk. If an evening becomes too much before we start, Woking Safe Haven in Westfield is a drop-in for adults, open from 6pm to 11pm every night.
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 short call, made from wherever feels calm
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.