Anxiety and worry
When your mind will not settle and everything feels urgent.
Online Counselling and Therapy · Durham
Online Counselling and Therapy in Durham
Online counselling and therapy for Durham, by secure video. From a base in Hove I work with people across Durham, from the peninsula and the centre to the streets around the cathedral, with the same BACP-registered, confidential support as an in-person session, and no journey.
BACP registered member25+ years of experienceLived experience
ConfidentialA safe, private space
Person-centredThe therapy fits you
In and around Durham
Counselling and Therapy for Durham, at a glance
- Areas covered online
- All of Durham: from the peninsula and the centre to Gilesgate, Neville's Cross and Framwellgate
- Known for
- The cathedral, the castle and the river Wear
- Region
- Yorkshire & North East (England)
- Local NHS / support route
- Durham and Darlington Talking Therapies
- Format
- Secure video, UK-wide. In-person also available on the Sussex coast.
Life in Durham
What is going on for people in Durham?
Term drives everything here, whether you belong to the university or not. Durham University fills the centre with people working to deadlines and empties it again, and the pressure inside that calendar leaks outwards into the shops, the lettings and the households that live here all year. You can be doing well by any external measure, handing everything in on time, and still find you have not slept properly since October and cannot remember the last thing you enjoyed. Around Gilesgate, Framwellgate Moor and Newton Hall, plenty of people are functioning at full capacity and quietly running on empty. That is not a diagnosis. It is a reason to talk to somebody.
Areas covered
Neighbourhoods in and around Durham
GilesgateNeville's CrossFramwellgate MoorBelmontCrossgateElvetSherburnBearparkUshaw MoorNewton Hall
Wherever you are in Durham, the work is the same, a calm, confidential space shaped around you.
The local picture
The local picture in Durham
Official figures for Durham, for context rather than as a description of you.
22% of adults reported a high anxiety score in 2022/23, below the England average of 23.8%. Source: OHID Fingertips – Self-reported wellbeing: high anxiety score (2022/23).
recorded depression on GP registers stood at 16.7% of patients aged 18+ in 2024/25, above the England average of 14.3%. Source: OHID Fingertips – Depression: QOF prevalence (2024/25).
the rate of emergency hospital admissions for self-harm was 85.3 per 100,000 in 2023/24, below the England average of 117 per 100,000. Source: OHID Fingertips – Emergency Hospital Admissions for Intentional Self-Harm (2023/24).
Reviewed June 2026.
What would we do together in counselling and therapy?
Counselling and therapy here is one steady starting point for whatever you are carrying, anxiety, low mood, addiction, relationships or the past, integrative and led by you, so we begin with what matters most and shape the work around you.
Rather than say the same thing on every page, the substance lives on counselling and therapy in detail, with session lengths and fees for the practical questions and qualifications, registration and ethics for registration and ethics.
What happens in an online session?
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.
The city is served online from Hove, and for a first attempt at therapy that removes several obstacles at once. No building to find, nobody to walk past, no one from your department or your street in the same waiting area. The starting point is a free 15-minute call and nothing more. Sessions then run weekly at a set hour, and the hour can shift when term, work or childcare demands it.
Book a free 15-minute callWhat I help with
What does counselling and therapy help with?
Low mood and depression
For the flatness, exhaustion and loss of interest that drain the colour from things.
Addiction and habits
Alcohol, drugs, gambling or behaviours that have stopped feeling like a choice.
Relationships
Conflict, distance and trust, as a couple or on your own.
Trauma and the past
When something you have been through still shapes your present.
Life feeling stuck
For the big transitions, losses and crossroads that leave you unsure which way to turn.
Counselling and Therapy in Durham
Why people in Durham come for counselling and therapy
This is the entry point, and it deliberately asks nothing of you at the door. No label, no referral, no account of your childhood. A great many first sessions begin with somebody saying they do not really know why they booked. The early work is practical and present-focused: what your week actually contains, what it costs you, and what would need to change for the next one to be different. In this area 22% of adults reported a high anxiety score in 2022/23, below the England average of 23.8%, and a below-average district still contains a great many people having a hard year. Counselling of this kind runs in weeks and months. Some find six or eight sessions covers it; others discover something older underneath and choose to go deeper later. Durham and Darlington Talking Therapies is the free NHS route in the meantime.
A free, unhurried first step
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 callFinding support in Durham
My online counselling sits alongside the help available locally. In Durham, you can refer yourself directly to Durham and Darlington 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:
If you need urgent help now
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.
Durham questions
Online Counselling and Therapy in Durham: common questions
I am a student and everybody else seems fine. Is this overreacting?
Almost nobody is as fine as they look in a place organised around deadlines. If sleep, appetite or concentration have gone, that is worth an hour a week regardless of how anybody else appears to be coping. Nothing here requires you to be in a crisis first.
What do sessions cost?
Sixty minutes is £80, with 90 minutes at £100 and 120 minutes at £120 if you want longer. The hour is what most people use for this kind of work. Before that there is a free 15-minute consultation, which exists to answer exactly this sort of question.
Where do I go on the NHS?
Durham and Darlington Talking Therapies is the local service for anxiety and depression, free at the point of use, and in England you can approach it yourself as well as through a GP. There is normally a wait and a set number of sessions, which suits some difficulties better than others.
Can sessions keep going over the vacation?
Yes, and people often do. Because everything happens by video, going home for a month or working somewhere else over the summer interrupts nothing. Keeping the same hour through a break tends to be more useful than stopping and restarting in the autumn.
How is this different from the deeper work on the site?
This stays with the present and is measured in weeks and months. Psychotherapy goes back into how you were formed and is measured in months and years. Beginning here closes nothing off, and a fair number of people never need the longer version at all.
I'm a student at Durham University, can you help?
Yes. Online sessions carry on through term, vacations and placements wherever you are, so moving between Durham and home doesn't interrupt things. I work privately, separate from the university and college welfare teams, which you're welcome to draw on alongside this.
Is online counselling available in Durham, and how quickly could I begin?
Yes. From my Hove base I see people across Durham by secure video, whether you are at the university, in Framwellgate Moor or an outlying former pit village. After a free 15-minute call we can usually book a first session within a few days.
How much does counselling cost in Durham, and how does it compare with the NHS?
It is £80 for 60 minutes, with 90 and 120-minute sessions at £100 and £120. NHS Talking Therapies in Durham is free and open to self-referral, though waits vary. Private online work simply means we can start sooner at a time around your week.
Can I have counselling in the evening without heading into central Durham?
Yes. Sessions are online, so you join from Belmont, Neville's Cross or wherever you can speak privately, with no trip into the city. I hold some evening appointments for people who cannot get away by day, and we would keep the same regular weekly slot.
Online Counselling and Therapy in Durham, whenever you are ready
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 Yorkshire & North East: Newcastle upon Tyne, Sunderland, Darlington. See all of Yorkshire & North East.
Close to this in Durham, there is anxiety counselling, depression counselling and psychotherapy.
If you would like to read more first, I have written about where to start when you cannot name it and how change actually sticks.
Closer to the Sussex coast? The same counselling and therapy is available in person, in Hove, where the room is, or see every area I cover.