Panic attacks
Support for racing thoughts, panic episodes and chest tightness.
Online Anxiety Counselling · Derby
Online anxiety counselling for Derby, by secure video. From a base in Hove I work with people across Derby, from the Cathedral Quarter and the centre to the streets around the Silk Mill, with the same BACP-registered, confidential support as an in-person session, and no journey.

In and around Derby
Life in Derby
Derby is an engineering city, and a great deal of its wellbeing is tied to a small number of very large employers. Rolls-Royce, Alstom at the old railway works, Toyota out at Burnaston: when any of those restructures, the unease travels through Alvaston and Sinfin within a day. The published figure here is unusually high. In 2022/23, 29.3% of adults reported a high anxiety score against an England average of 23.8%, a sizeable gap and one of the rarer cases where a statistic matches what people actually describe. Shift patterns break sleep. Skilled work that once felt permanent stopped feeling that way. Worry in a place like this tends to look like competence, held together carefully until it is not.
Areas covered
Wherever you are in Derby, the work is the same, a calm, confidential space shaped around you.
The local picture
Official figures for Derby, for context rather than as a description of you.
29.3% of adults reported a high anxiety score in 2022/23, above the England average of 23.8%. Source: OHID Fingertips – Self-reported wellbeing: high anxiety score (2022/23).
Reviewed June 2026.
Anxiety counselling here is practical and solution-focused: we work on the worry, panic, social anxiety and over-thinking that are actually affecting your day, and on simple ways to settle a nervous system stuck on high alert.
The method travels; only the geography changes. the anxiety counselling page explains it properly, how I work, sessions and fees answers the practical questions, and my BACP registration shows how the practice is held to account.
Sessions run over a secure, encrypted video link, held to the same BACP confidentiality as meeting in person. After a free fifteen-minute call, you join from any private space on a phone, tablet or laptop.
All of this happens online by secure video. Bradley works from Hove, so no Derby address enters the picture, and that suits anxiety rather well. Nobody sits in a corridor waiting to be called through. Appointments can be pinned to a rotating shift instead of a working day, including early mornings before a factory start and evenings after one. Headphones, a door you can shut and a reasonable connection are the whole of the equipment involved.
Book a free 15-minute callWhat I help with
Support for racing thoughts, panic episodes and chest tightness.
Help with confidence, self-consciousness and fear of judgement.
Support for overthinking, catastrophising and decision paralysis.
Working with the need for control and approval.
Calming a nervous system stuck on high alert.
Tools for when anxiety starts to take hold.
Anxiety Counselling in Derby
People here usually get in touch after the worry has taken something concrete away. Sleep before an early start. The confidence to speak in a briefing. A route across town that now gets driven the long way round. Anxiety counselling is practical and solution-focused, and it opens by describing exactly what your anxiety does rather than what it is: the trigger, the thought, what the chest and stomach do, and the thing you stopped doing afterwards. We bring the physical alarm down first, because a settled body argues with a frightened thought far more successfully than a frightened body ever will. The belief underneath is then tested in small agreed experiments you set and can judge yourself. With 29.3% of adults reporting high anxiety in 2022/23, you are in thoroughly unremarkable company. Derby and Derbyshire Talking Therapies accepts self-referrals without a GP letter, and there is no conflict in using it alongside private sessions.
Not sure if it is right for you? A free fifteen-minute call is a no-obligation way to talk it through.
Book a free 15-minute callMy online counselling sits alongside the help available locally. In Derby, you can refer yourself directly to Derby and Derbyshire Talking Therapies for free NHS talking therapy, with no GP referral needed.
Private sessions with me usually mean you can start sooner and stay with the same counsellor throughout; I am glad to work alongside any NHS or GP support you already have.
Other local and national support verified for this area includes:
This is not a crisis service. If anyone is in immediate danger call 999. For urgent mental health support, call NHS 111 and choose the mental health option. The Samaritans are free, day or night, on 116 123, or text SHOUT to 85258.
Derby questions
It means it is common, which is not the same as comfortable. That 2022/23 figure sits well above the England average of 23.8%, so a lot of people nearby are quietly carrying something similar. Common is not a reason to keep putting up with it indefinitely.
Go to the service directly and say you would like to self-refer. That route applies throughout England, so your GP does not need to write anything first. Expect some questions about how you have been managing, then an offer of whatever suits. Waits change through the year, and beginning privately while you wait is common enough.
You pay £80 for an hour, £100 for ninety minutes and £120 for two hours. Most anxiety work sits comfortably inside the hour, since it depends on short pieces of practice repeated between appointments. Before any of that there is a free 15-minute consultation for asking whatever you want to ask.
It can, and there is a good deal to be said for working on the hours when it actually happens rather than the hours some service happens to open. We would look at what a night shift does to breathing, eating and daylight, then build a short routine you can run on a break unnoticed.
Yes, because two separate things are running at once. The practical situation may need decisions and planning. The constant rehearsing, the checking and the tightness across your chest is a different problem that no amount of planning will touch, and that is the one we work on.
Yes. Because everything is online, appointment times can often be arranged outside standard office hours, which tends to suit people on rotating shifts at Rolls-Royce, Toyota or across the city's engineering firms. It is worth raising the times that work for your pattern.
Getting going is straightforward. Derby is served online from the Hove room, so there is no drive into the centre and no local list to join. A free 15-minute consultation is usually arranged first, then we settle a regular time that fits around shift patterns or family.
This is private counselling, not an NHS service. Sessions are £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90 and £120 for two hours, with a free 15-minute consultation first. You can also self-refer to NHS Talking Therapies through a Derby GP, though waiting times vary.
In-person is not offered, since the room is in Hove and Derby is served by video. Because sessions are online, evening and out-of-hours times can often be arranged, which tends to suit people on rotating shifts at Rolls-Royce, Toyota or across the city's engineering firms.
A free fifteen-minute call is the simplest place to start, no obligation, just a chance to see if we are the right fit.
Also available online across Midlands: Nottingham, Leicester, Stoke-on-Trent. See all of Midlands.
Close to this in Derby, there is depression counselling, trauma counselling and counselling and therapy.
You may also find it useful to read about the miracle question and settling a spike of urgency.
If you can reach the south coast, this work is also done face to face in Brighton — all in-person areas are listed here.