Recurring patterns
When the same difficulty keeps returning in different forms.
Online Psychotherapy · Exeter
Online Psychotherapy in Exeter
Online psychotherapy for Exeter, by secure video. From a base in Hove I work with people across Exeter, from the cathedral quarter and the quay to the streets around the university, 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 Exeter
Psychotherapy for Exeter, at a glance
- Areas covered online
- All of Exeter: from the cathedral quarter and the quay to St Thomas, Heavitree and Pinhoe
- Known for
- The cathedral, the quay and the university
- Region
- South West (England)
- Local NHS / support route
- TALKWORKS, Devon's NHS Talking Therapies service
- Format
- Secure video, UK-wide. In-person also available on the Sussex coast.
Life in Exeter
What brings people in Exeter to counselling?
Exeter attracts people who are good at coping. Academics, clinicians, professionals who moved down for a steadier life and were competent from the first week. Competence of that kind is often built early, in a home where someone had to be reliable, and it holds up for decades before it begins to cost. Then the same thing arrives again: the flatness after every achievement, the sense of being an impostor in a job you plainly do well, the difficulty in letting anyone close. In Topsham or St Thomas you can have an enviable life and privately think very little of yourself. Nothing on the surface explains it, which is what brings people to longer work.
Areas covered
Neighbourhoods in and around Exeter
St ThomasHeavitreePinhoeSt LeonardsExwickWhiptonAlphingtonWonfordTopsham
Wherever you are in Exeter, the work is the same, a calm, confidential space shaped around you.
The local picture
The local picture in Exeter
Official figures for Exeter, for context rather than as a description of you.
recorded depression on GP registers stood at 13.9% of patients aged 18+ in 2024/25, below the England average of 14.3%. Source: OHID Fingertips – Depression: QOF prevalence (2024/25).
the rate of emergency hospital admissions for self-harm was 159 per 100,000 in 2023/24, above the England average of 117 per 100,000. Source: OHID Fingertips – Emergency Hospital Admissions for Intentional Self-Harm (2023/24).
19.8% 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).
Reviewed June 2026.
What does psychotherapy involve?
Psychotherapy here goes a little deeper and usually a little longer than counselling, into the patterns, beliefs and early relationships that shape how you feel now, so change is understood at the root and holds.
The approach does not change with the postcode, so rather than repeat it on every page you can read it in full, the methods and what each session covers, on the main psychotherapy page, alongside the practical side and my credentials and registration.
What do I need for 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.
Exeter is served online from Hove, and extended therapy fits that arrangement well. The weekly hour is not at the mercy of the traffic on the way in, and it survives a change of job, a house move or a term ending. That reliability is not a detail in deep work; it is most of what makes it possible. What you need at your end is a private hour, repeated, for months rather than weeks.
Book a free 15-minute callWhat I help with
Which difficulties does psychotherapy address?
Attachment and relationships
How early bonds still shape the way you connect now.
Identity and self-worth
Working with a harsh inner voice and a shaky sense of self.
The past in the present
When something unresolved keeps replaying beneath the surface.
Beyond symptom relief
Understanding the root, not just quieting the symptom.
Lasting change
Insight that holds, so change does not slip back.
Psychotherapy in Exeter
Why people in Exeter come for psychotherapy
Nearly everyone who starts here has tried something shorter already. It helped for a while and then the same pattern reassembled itself. Long-term work treats that repetition as the actual subject. We look at your earliest relationships, what you had to become to be approved of, and the beliefs about yourself that formed before you had any means of questioning them. Identity and self-worth are the ground of this rather than a side issue. Emergency hospital admissions for self-harm reached 159 per 100,000 in 2023/24, above the England average of 117 per 100,000, and figures like that describe distress that has usually been carried quietly for years. Expect months rather than a fixed number of sessions, at a pace you set, ending when you judge it right. TALKWORKS, Devon's NHS Talking Therapies service, is available alongside.
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 Exeter
My online counselling sits alongside the help available locally. In Exeter, you can refer yourself directly to TALKWORKS, Devon's NHS Talking Therapies service 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.
Exeter questions
Online Psychotherapy in Exeter: common questions
How do I decide between the short and the long work?
Ask how many times this has happened before. A first episode with a clear trigger usually responds to short work. Something that has come back in different decades and different relationships is the sort of thing longer therapy is built for.
What is the cost of committing to something open-ended?
A weekly hour is £80, and that is the number to plan around for as long as you continue. Ninety minutes is £100, two hours £120. Nothing is paid in advance as a block, and you are free to review the arrangement whenever you want.
I did a course of NHS therapy and it ran out. Is that a failure?
Not at all. Time-limited work is designed for the present difficulty and does that job well. When the trouble has older roots, the ending arrives before the roots are reached. That is a mismatch of format rather than anything about you.
Can attachment work really be done by video?
It can. The relationship between you and the therapist develops through attention and consistency, both of which come across a screen intact. People often say they reached difficult material earlier at home than they ever managed in an unfamiliar building.
I am an academic and I overthink everything. Will that get in the way?
Understanding a pattern intellectually and being changed by it are different things, and long work is where that gap gets addressed. Thinking well is useful. The therapy simply keeps returning to what you feel while you are thinking, which is usually the part that has been skipped.
How is psychotherapy different from counselling for someone in Exeter?
Psychotherapy is longer and more exploratory, looking at the roots of lasting patterns rather than only current stress. It suits deeper, ongoing work. Sessions are by secure video from wherever you are in Exeter, since the consulting room is in Hove, on the Sussex coast.
How soon can I begin online psychotherapy in Exeter?
There is no waiting list, so Exeter clients can begin longer-term psychotherapy within a week or two. A free 15-minute call helps us feel out the fit before we settle into a regular weekly slot. Sessions run online by secure video, with the room based in Hove.
What are your psychotherapy fees in Exeter, and how does that compare with the NHS?
Longer-term psychotherapy is private and self funded. Each 60-minute session is £80, with £100 for 90 minutes and £120 for two hours, plus a free 15-minute consultation. NHS Talking Therapies in Devon are reachable through a GP, but they rarely offer the open-ended depth that private work in Exeter allows.
Does online psychotherapy work around a busy Exeter schedule, including evenings?
Yes. Regular online sessions let deeper work continue even with a demanding Exeter routine or travel, the kind familiar to staff at the Met Office and the university. A consistent weekly slot, including some evenings, keeps the therapy steady. The consulting room is in Hove, so psychotherapy is delivered UK-wide by secure video.
Online Psychotherapy in Exeter, 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 South West: Plymouth, Torquay, Taunton. See all of South West.
Close to this in Exeter, there is counselling and therapy, depression counselling and trauma counselling.
If you would like to read more first, I have written about dislocation and the modern world.
If you can reach the south coast, this work is also done face to face in Brighton — all in-person areas are listed here.