Canterbury · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Counselling and therapy for Canterbury
Maybe term, the tourist season or a too-quiet house in Canterbury has left you weighed down without a clear reason, and one first conversation is how we begin. I see adults individually, as a BACP registered counsellor. With the Hove room 106 minutes' drive away, we would normally work over secure video: the same counsellor each week, a fixed hour, and you in a quiet room at home in the city.
The practical facts for Canterbury
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Canterbury by car
- About 106 minutes with clear roads (90.5 miles); longer at busy times.
- Free NHS talking therapy
- NHS Talking Therapies Kent and Medway, 0333 091 0414
- 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 city of students, visitors and people living alone
Canterbury changes shape through the year.
Term brings some 31,000 students to the University of Kent, Canterbury Christ Church University and the University for the Creative Arts, and the council notes that the district has more 19 to 24 year olds than the Kent average. It also has more people aged 70 to 79, and in 2017 the council found that 31% of pensioners lived alone, rising to 49% in Northgate. Between those two groups are the people who keep the city running: hotel, shop and cafe staff in a visitor economy estimated to have supported 9,378 jobs in 2015, staff at Kent and Canterbury Hospital, and families in Wincheap, Northgate and Barton, where some neighbourhoods were placed among England's 20% most deprived in that 2017 profile. A city that looks settled from the Westgate Towers can still be a lonely, stretched or noisy place to live, and that is often what people want to talk about first.
Bringing a muddle rather than a clear question
Ring from Canterbury with whatever you have, even if it is only a half-formed sense that something is off. Some people arrive with a clear event: a relationship ending in their final year, a partner's illness, losing work when the tourist season winds down. Others bring something harder to pin down, such as a worry that wakes them at four, a temper that has got shorter, or evenings where a glass of wine has turned into most of a bottle. Each of those is reason enough to call. Our opening hours together map what weighs on you and what holds it there, be it night shifts at Kent and Canterbury Hospital, a silent house in Northgate since a death, or an old hurt stirred by moving to the city. From that we settle a focus, and if the Umbrella Centre, your GP or an NHS team would fit you better, I'll say so plainly. Behind that sits BACP registration, more than 25 years of counselling and a recovery of my own, so whatever a Canterbury week has brought, you can say it straight. The methods I blend, Human Givens included, are set out on the how I work page if you want to read up before calling.
What a Canterbury year can put on people
Deadlines, then an empty summer
Students at the University of Kent or Christ Church, and the staff around them, can find the pressure of term and the sudden quiet after it hard in different ways.
Pensioners on their own in Northgate
The council's 2017 profile found close to half of Northgate's pensioners lived alone, and long days without much conversation can wear down someone who has always coped.
Working the visitor season
Shifts in hotels, cafes and shops around Whitefriars follow the tourists, which can mean long summers, uncertain winters and little time left to look after yourself.
Evenings when it feels too much
Adults can walk into Canterbury Safe Haven on North Lane any evening between 6pm and 11pm without a referral, and use it between our weekly video hours.
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 Canterbury
Private sessions can sit beside the free support that Canterbury already has. Anxiety or low mood can go straight to NHS Talking Therapies Kent and Medway by self-referral, a service Vita Health Group and With You run together. The Canterbury Umbrella Centre on St Peters Place offers peer groups, courses and a cafe on weekdays, and Live Well Kent and Medway connects people with community mental health support.
- Free NHS talking therapyNHS Talking Therapies Kent and Medway0333 091 0414Free 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 itEast Kent community drug and alcohol service (The Forward Trust)0300 123 1186Free and confidential.
- Local organisationRethink Canterbury and Coastal Carers' Support Group
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 Release the Pressure Helpline - Kent is on 0800 107 0160. Local drop-in crisis support: Canterbury Safe Haven (Mental Health Matters) (check opening times before you go).
If you drink heavily every day, or take drugs such as benzodiazepines or GHB daily, do not stop suddenly without medical advice. Withdrawal can cause seizures and can be dangerous. Your GP or the local drug and alcohol service can arrange medically assisted withdrawal. Call 999 or go to A&E if someone in withdrawal is shaking visibly, unusually restless or agitated, confused, seeing or hearing things that are not there, or has a fit. For milder symptoms, such as a slight tremor or sweating, contact your GP or NHS 111 the same day (NHS guidance). Counselling works alongside medical support, not instead of it.
What people in Canterbury ask before starting
Is face-to-face counselling possible from Canterbury, or only video?
The only room I use is in Hove, a 106-minute drive from Canterbury, or longer by rail through St Pancras or Victoria, so the ordinary weekly hour from beside the Stour runs on a video link. You keep the same counsellor and lose the travel. Anyone from Canterbury who wants to meet in person can book a longer Hove session, perhaps at the beginning and then once in a while.
Is there a wait to begin counselling if I live in Canterbury?
Once the 15-minute call is done and we both want to keep going, I list the weekly hours still free in my diary and you take whichever suits your Canterbury week. Kent residents with anxiety or low mood can also ring 0333 091 0414, which connects them to NHS Talking Therapies Kent and Medway; that help can overlap with ours.
Where can I go in Canterbury in the evening if I'm struggling?
Mental Health Matters runs Canterbury Safe Haven at 22-23 North Lane, where adults can drop in, ring, email or video call on any evening from 6pm until 11pm, and nobody asks for a referral. Kent's free Release the Pressure line answers on 0800 107 0160. Call 999 where someone's life is at immediate risk. For Kent crisis lines beyond these two, see the urgent help box.
I'm a student in Canterbury. Can I see you as well as using university support?
Yes. Some students like to use whatever support their university offers and also see someone independent of it, away from campus and on their own timetable. Video works well from a room in halls or a shared house in Hales Place or St Stephens, provided you can talk without being overheard. Sessions can pause over the vacations if you go home.
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.
Fifteen minutes on the phone, from home in the city
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.