Maida Vale · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Counselling and therapy for Maida Vale
It may be that life in your W9 mansion flat has felt off for months, without a clear word for what has changed. That is a sensible moment to talk. I see people individually, and my one counselling room sits far south in Hove, so from W9 we would normally meet on a secure video call, with a visit to the room whenever you want one.
The practical facts for Maida Vale
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Maida Vale by car
- About 106 minutes with clear roads (56.2 miles); longer at busy times.
- Free NHS talking therapy
- Westminster Talking Therapies, 030 3333 0000
- 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.
Mansion blocks, canal towpaths and a lot of living alone
Maida Vale is a place of flats. At the 2021 census, 74.7% of households in the ward lived in purpose-built blocks, and another 20.0% in converted or shared houses, many of them along the Lauderdale Road and Elgin Avenue mansion-flat streets. Most households rent, 42.6% of them from a private landlord. About a third of households, 32.7%, were one person on their own. That shape of life has real comforts: the communal gardens, the walk along the Regent's Canal to Browning's Pool, laps of the track at Paddington Recreation Ground. It can also mean a year-to-year tenancy, thin walls, neighbours you nod to and never really know, and evenings where nobody notices how quiet you have gone. Even the old certainties shift. The BBC's Maida Vale Studios on Delaware Road, home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 1934, were sold in 2023. None of this makes anyone unwell, but it can leave you carrying a lot by yourself.
Arriving without knowing what is wrong
Nobody needs a label or a neat account of things before writing to me. For one person the reason is plain, such as a break-up, an ageing parent growing frailer, or a West End job that now eats every evening. Others can point only to smaller signs: nights spent awake, a canal walk with friends cancelled yet again, or one glass of wine after work quietly stretching towards the whole bottle. Each of those counts as reason enough to ring. Over the first few sessions we map what presses on you and what pins it in place: perhaps solitude behind a mansion-block door off Elgin Avenue, dread of the landlord's next renewal letter, or an older hurt that the stillness of a W9 flat has let rise. After that, the two of us settle on where the sessions should point. Should a different service fit you more closely, I'll tell you honestly and say where to find it. The approach draws on several traditions, each described under how I work. Over 25 years of counselling, along with recovery of my own, mean a Maida Vale story about drink, debt or despair is not going to shock me.
What a Maida Vale life can pile up
The quiet of a one-person flat
With roughly a third of Maida Vale households made up of one person, long evenings alone can turn small worries into large ones before anyone else hears about them.
Renting without roots
When most homes in the ward are rented, the next tenancy renewal or a move across London can keep you braced and unsettled for months at a time.
Older and living solo
The 2021 census counted 437 households of someone aged 66 or over living alone in the ward, where loss, health and isolation can weigh heavily.
A cheaper option nearby
The CCPE Low-Cost Clinic at Beauchamp Lodge in Little Venice offers reduced-fee sessions with student counsellors, which some people use first or alongside private work.
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 Maida Vale
Private counselling can sit beside free and low-cost help in Westminster. For anxiety or low mood, Westminster Talking Therapies, an NHS Talking Therapies service under CNWL, accepts a self-referral without a GP letter. The CCPE Low-Cost Clinic in Little Venice offers reduced fees, The Exchange at Ernest Harriss House runs wellbeing sessions and advice drop-ins, and Carers Network supports people looking after someone.
- Free NHS talking therapyWestminster Talking Therapies030 3333 0000Free 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 itTurning Point Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea (Drug and Alcohol Wellbeing Service, DAWS)0330 303 8080Free and confidential.
- Local organisationCCPE Low-Cost ClinicLow-cost or fee-paying.
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 CNWL Mental Health Single Point of Access is on 0800 0234 650.
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 Maida Vale ask before starting
Is face-to-face counselling realistic from a flat in Maida Vale?
It is possible, though the single room I use sits at Intergen House in Hove, a drive of around 106 minutes from W9, or three stages by tube and train via Oxford Circus and London Victoria. For regular weekly work, a secure video call from your own flat is usually far easier, with a Hove visit slotted in on the odd occasion you would rather sit across from me.
Would I wait long to begin counselling from W9?
We begin with a short free call by phone or video, wherever you are in Maida Vale or Little Venice. Should that call feel right to both of us, you choose from whichever weekly slots are genuinely free in my diary, and sessions start without a waiting list. Westminster Talking Therapies, the NHS option under CNWL, accepts calls on 030 3333 0000 from W9 residents wanting support around anxiety or low mood, with no GP letter needed, if you want that too.
Is video counselling private enough in a shared or thin-walled flat?
Usually yes, with some forethought. Headphones help a lot, and a bedroom with the door shut or a parked car can both work when walls in a converted house are thin. If housemates are home, we can move the time or use a written chat for part of a session. We settle the practical side together before the first session, so you are not worrying about being overheard.
What if I need someone to talk to tonight, not next week?
Westminster residents who feel unsafe or swamped tonight can ring CNWL's Mental Health Single Point of Access, staffed day and night, on 0800 0234 650, or talk to Central London Samaritans, who also pick up at any hour. Where a life is in immediate danger, whether yours or a neighbour's, 999 is the number to call first. Every one of those numbers sits together in the urgent help box on this page, and our sessions can pick up once the immediate danger has eased.
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.
A first conversation, from your own front room in W9
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.