Notting Hill · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Counselling and therapy for Notting Hill
When life in Notting Hill has started to feel heavier than it should, and you'd value one steady counsellor to think it through with, this page is a fair place to begin. Because I see people in a single room in Hove, 100 minutes by car from W11, our weekly hour would usually happen on secure video, with a trip to the coast whenever you would like one.
The practical facts for Notting Hill
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Notting Hill by car
- About 100 minutes with clear roads (62.7 miles); longer at busy times.
- Free NHS talking therapy
- Kensington and Chelsea Talking Therapies, 020 3317 4200
- 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.
Carnival streets, garden squares and closed front doors
Notting Hill is a place people know from the outside.
Portobello Road Market runs almost the whole length of the district, visitors fill it at weekends, and every August bank holiday Carnival brings around two million people onto these streets. Behind that, ordinary life carries on in Victorian terraces around the garden squares and in the flats beneath Trellick Tower, from Pembridge up to Golborne and Kensal Town. Being surrounded by crowds is a different thing from being known. Across Kensington and Chelsea as a whole, around one in three people aged 65 and over live alone, and 10 per cent of residents say they often or always lack companionship. In North Kensington the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017 is still close, and the NHS has kept a dedicated wellbeing service running there for almost nine years. You might be carrying any of that, or something that has nothing to do with where you live.
When you can't yet say what it is
General counselling suits the moment when something is wrong but hard to name. It might be a relationship that has gone quiet, work that has started to swallow every evening, grief, a move away from family, or a sense that you've been running on adrenaline for far too long. It might be a glass of wine that has crept from Friday to most nights. You can get in touch without a label for any of it. In the first few sessions we map the weight you are carrying and whatever keeps feeding it, then choose together which part of life in W11 to start with. My way of working is integrative, borrowing from Internal Family Systems among other approaches, with more on that under how I work. Behind it sit BACP registration, over 25 years of counselling, and a recovery of my own, so plain speaking is welcome here. Sometimes another service belongs in the picture as well, such as Kensington and Chelsea Talking Therapies for anxiety or low mood, or your GP if medication comes up, and I'll point you there while our sessions continue. If you already use the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service, private counselling can run beside it at whatever pace suits you.
What a Notting Hill week can put on you
Living where others visit
Portobello Road crowds and Carnival weekend can make home feel public, and a lively street outside can sit oddly with feeling flat or alone indoors.
Alone behind a front door
Quiet evenings in a flat off a garden square or up a W10 block, with friends spread across London and few people you'd ring late at night.
Still close to Grenfell
If the 2017 fire touched your life, the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service offers free NHS support, and private counselling can sit beside it as a separate space.
Video from W11, same counsellor
Joining from home saves the Circle line to Victoria and the train south, and you keep the same counsellor whether or not you ever visit Hove.
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 Notting Hill
Private sessions can run alongside the free help around Notting Hill. You can phone Kensington and Chelsea Talking Therapies yourself on 020 3317 4200 if you are anxious or your mood has dropped. Hestia runs the Grove Centre on St Marks Road and the Oremi Centre at Trellick Tower for drop-in and outreach support, Carers Network backs unpaid carers, and the Al-Hasaniya Moroccan Women's Centre supports Arabic-speaking women in the borough.
- Free NHS talking therapyKensington and Chelsea Talking Therapies020 3317 4200Free 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 and Chelsea (Drug and Alcohol Wellbeing Service)0330 303 8080Free and confidential.
- Local organisationBuild on Belief (BoB): Acorn Hall Weekend ServiceRecovery community.
- Local organisationRBKC Integrated Mental Health Service (Hestia): Grove Centre and Oremi CentreDay centre.
- Local organisationPembridge Hospice and Palliative Care bereavement counselling
- Local organisationFrench African Welfare Association (FAWA), Canalside HouseRegistered charity with an office at Canalside House.
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 crisis line, London boroughs) 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 Notting Hill ask before starting
Could we meet face to face if I'm living in Notting Hill?
In person means the room at Intergen House in Hove, roughly 100 minutes' drive, or the Circle line to Victoria and a Southern train south. For regular sessions from Notting Hill, secure video is usually far easier, and it is the same hour with the same counsellor. Should sitting in the same room matter to you, a longer session at Intergen House every so often is easy to plan.
How long before I could start sessions from Notting Hill?
It starts with a free consultation lasting 15 minutes, by phone or video. If we both feel the call went well, I'll pass on the weekly openings I have, and the hour you choose is held for you. Kensington and Chelsea Talking Therapies, part of Community Living Well, is free and you can ring it yourself on 020 3317 4200 about anxiety or low mood, though waits differ.
Is there support in North Kensington for people affected by Grenfell?
Yes. Bereaved families, survivors and anyone in the wider North Kensington community can refer themselves to the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service, which Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust runs free of charge. It offers talking therapies, arts psychotherapies and bereavement counselling. Private counselling with me can sit beside it, or come later, if you'd like a separate space to talk.
Who can I call in Notting Hill if I'm in crisis tonight?
The CNWL Mental Health Single Point of Access answers around the clock on 0800 0234 650 for people in London boroughs, and Samaritans take calls on 116 123 at any hour. When someone's life is at risk right now, ring 999. Those numbers are also grouped under urgent help on this page, and our weekly sessions can carry on at a calmer pace beside any crisis support you use.
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 W11 or W10
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.