Slough · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Bereavement and grief counselling for Slough
After a death, Slough keeps moving, with traffic on the M4, shifts on the Trading Estate and school runs all carrying on as if your world had not just stopped. Bereavement counselling keeps one hour of your week for the person who died and for all that losing them has unsettled in you. My room in Hove is 85 minutes' drive away, so grief sessions from Slough usually take place by secure video.
If you are thinking about ending your life, call 999 or the Samaritans free on 116 123, day or night. More urgent help is on this page.
The practical facts for Slough
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Slough by car
- About 85 minutes with clear roads (69.9 miles); longer at busy times.
- Free bereavement helpline
- Cruse Bereavement Support helpline, 0808 808 1677
- 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.
Mourning in a full house, or in an empty one
Homes in Slough are often full, and after a death the house may fill further, with relatives, food, visits and, depending on your faith and tradition, prayers or gatherings that go on for days.
All those people can hold you up, yet in a crowded Slough home they may also leave nowhere to be alone with your own grief. When the visitors finally go home, the silence can be sudden. Other losses are lived in near silence from the start: a sizeable share of the borough's older residents live alone, and losing a husband or wife can mean losing the one person you spoke to every day. The last weeks may have been spent at Wexham Park Hospital, or with care from Thames Hospice, and afterwards a drive past the hospital or along a familiar road in Langley or Upton can catch you off guard. In a town with a young population, a parent may also be holding up grieving children while barely standing themselves.
Room for anger, guilt, relief and silence
There are no stages to tick off in our sessions and no date by which you are meant to feel better. We begin with whatever is most present: the person themselves, the last conversation, the rush of funeral arrangements, or a family disagreement about what should have happened. Anger, guilt and relief can sit next to sadness, and relief after months of caring is human, even when it feels disloyal to say. If the relationship was difficult, grief can carry old hurts as well as love, and both are welcome. Your faith, your culture and your family's expectations of how a widow, a son or an eldest daughter should behave can all be part of the conversation, and I ask rather than assume. Where grief follows a suicide, Cruse Bereavement Support can help alongside our work. If drinking has crept up since the death, we can look at that honestly, and START, run by Turning Point, is the local route if it has gone further. Should the loss ever leave you not wanting to go on, please turn to the urgent help box on this page for people you can reach day or night. With 25+ years in practice behind me, I let you set the pace.
Losses and local help across Slough
After care from Thames Hospice
Thames Hospice offers counselling and bereavement support, and if your relative was cared for there, it is worth asking the hospice what is available to you.
Widowed and on your own
If the house has gone quiet, Wellbeing Friends from Slough CVS gives a free weekly phone call from a matched, trained volunteer for up to 24 weeks.
Grieving with children at home
In a young town, a bereaved parent is often also comforting children who have lost someone too. Sessions can be one place where your own grief comes first.
The small hours
Samaritans of Slough, Windsor and Maidenhead is the local Samaritans branch, reachable on 116 123 at any hour when grief is heaviest at night.
Free bereavement support for Slough
Free help after a death in Slough comes from several directions: bereavement support and counselling through Thames Hospice, the national Cruse Bereavement Support helpline, and Samaritans of Slough, Windsor and Maidenhead, who listen day and night. If the house has gone quiet, Slough CVS runs Wellbeing Friends phone befriending, and you can refer yourself to NHS Berkshire Talking Therapies when grief has brought low mood or anxiety with it. Private grief counselling can sit alongside any of these.
- Free bereavement helplineCruse Bereavement Support helpline0808 808 1677Free, from trained volunteers. Open Monday and Wednesday to Friday 9.30am to 5pm, Tuesday 1pm to 8pm.
- Free NHS talking therapyNHS Berkshire Talking Therapies0300 365 2000 (press option 2)Free NHS talking therapy for low mood or anxiety that has settled in after a loss. You can refer yourself, with no GP referral needed.
- If drinking or drug use is part of itSlough Treatment, Advice and Recovery Team (START)01753 692548Run by Turning Point. Free and confidential.
- Local organisationBuckinghamshire Mind (Buckinghamshire and East Berkshire Mind), Mind in Berkshire: Community Connectors, Berkshire EastMental health charity.
- Local organisationSlough Carers Support (Slough Borough Council, in-house)
- Local organisationThames Hospice counselling and bereavement 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 Berkshire Healthcare Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team, East, adults 18+ is on 0800 129 9999. Local drop-in crisis support: East Berkshire Safe Haven (Mental Health Matters) (check opening times before you go).
What people in Slough ask before starting
Is there free bereavement help anywhere in Slough?
Thames Hospice provides counselling and bereavement support, and Cruse Bereavement Support runs a free national helpline on 0808 808 1677. If loneliness has followed the loss, Wellbeing Friends from Slough CVS offers a free weekly phone call with a volunteer. Weekly private sessions with me are available without a waiting list once we have had a short free conversation.
My mother died at Wexham Park Hospital last month. Should I wait before starting counselling?
There is no need to wait, and no correct moment. You can start in the first weeks, while everything is raw, or much later, when relatives have gone home and everyone expects you to be back at work. The first session is about her and about what has happened since, told in whatever order you want.
Can I have bereavement counselling online from Slough?
Yes, and from Slough that is how we would usually meet, as the Hove room is around 85 minutes' drive away. Logging in from a private room at home means that after a raw session there is no Elizabeth line ride to face; you can simply stay put. Should meeting face to face matter, a longer session now and then at Intergen House is possible, reached by the Elizabeth line to Farringdon and Thameslink south.
Will a grief counsellor respect my faith and my family's traditions in Slough?
Yes. Mourning looks different across the many faiths and cultures in Slough, and I will ask how yours shapes your grief rather than assume. If family expectations about how long to mourn, or what you should feel, sit uneasily with you, we can explore that privately. Within the usual safeguarding limits, nothing you say is passed on to relatives or to your community.
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.
Talk about the person you have lost, from anywhere in Slough
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.