Online Psychotherapy · Hastings

Online Psychotherapy in Hastings

Online psychotherapy for Hastings, by secure video. From a base in Hove I work with people across Hastings, from the Old Town and the Stade to the streets around the fishing beach, with the same BACP-registered, confidential support as an in-person session, and no journey.

Online across the UKSecure videoFree 15-min consultation
BACP registered member25+ years of experienceLived experience
Bradley Riddell, BACP-registered counsellor offering online psychotherapy for Hastings, introducing his approach
ConfidentialA safe, private space
Person-centredThe therapy fits you

In and around Hastings

Psychotherapy for Hastings, at a glance

Areas covered online
All of Hastings: from the Old Town and the Stade to St Leonards, Ore and Silverhill
Known for
The Old Town, the fishing beach and the cliffs
Region
London & South East (England)
Local NHS / support route
Health in Mind, the East Sussex NHS Talking Therapies service
Format
Secure video, UK-wide. In-person also available on the Sussex coast.

Life in Hastings

Why people in Hastings get in touch

This town takes in a lot of people who were looking for somewhere to land. Some came for the cheaper rent, some after a marriage ended, some because the place seemed to accept people other towns had not. That is a genuine kindness of Hastings, and it does not resolve what somebody brought with them. What repeats sits deeper than circumstance: an expectation of being let down, a habit of shrinking to fit whoever is in the room, a certainty that any good stretch is temporary. Living somewhere with real hardship in it can make all of that look like a sensible response to the facts. Often enough it started a very long time before you arrived.

the fishing fleet on the Stadethe creative and arts communityHastings Contemporary gallery

Areas covered

Neighbourhoods in and around Hastings

Old TownSt LeonardsOreSilverhillHollingtonBohemiaWest HillClive ValeCentral St Leonards

Wherever you are in Hastings, the work is the same, a calm, confidential space shaped around you.

The local picture

The local picture in Hastings

Official figures for Hastings, for context rather than as a description of you.

Reviewed June 2026.

What is psychotherapy, in practice?

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.

Rather than say the same thing on every page, the substance lives on the psychotherapy page, with session lengths and fees for the practical questions and my credentials and registration for registration and ethics.

How does meeting by video work in practice?

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.

Long work has to be dependable more than anything else. Sessions run by secure video from Hove at the same hour each week, which is far easier to keep going over a year or two than a regular journey along this coast in winter. It holds through a house move, a bad season for work, illness or a fortnight away. In therapy of this length the unbroken thread between one week and the next is doing a substantial part of the work.

Book a free 15-minute call

What I help with

Which difficulties does psychotherapy address?

Recurring patterns

When the same difficulty keeps returning in different forms.

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 Hastings

Why people in Hastings come for psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is for the thing that keeps coming back rather than the thing that happened this week. Not the row on Tuesday, but why it followed a script you have known for thirty years; not this landlord or this employer, but why every situation ends with you cornered and unable to speak. We go back into the family you grew up in, into what affection cost there and what you had to be in order to be kept, and into where your harshest opinion of yourself was learned. Recorded depression on GP registers here stood at 17.4% of patients aged 18 and over in 2024/25, above the England average of 14.3%, and long-standing low mood of that kind is precisely the territory this work is for. The hour is weekly, without a fixed end, and reviewed together every few months. Health in Mind covers shorter structured courses 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 call

Finding support in Hastings

My online counselling sits alongside the help available locally. In Hastings, you can refer yourself directly to Health in Mind, the East Sussex 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.

Hastings questions

Online Psychotherapy in Hastings: common questions

I have had counselling more than once and it never quite lasted. Why would this?

Because it is aimed differently. Shorter work manages what is happening now and often does that well. This goes after what keeps producing it, which means early relationships, attachment and the beliefs formed alongside them. It runs open-ended and weekly, and we review it together rather than counting to a finish.

Can I do long-term work on an unpredictable income?

It takes planning rather than a large salary. The rates are £80 / 60 min, £100 / 90 min and £120 / 120 min, and you pay for each hour as it happens. Fortnightly sessions through the lean months keep the work alive, and going back to weekly when things improve is straightforward. Raise money early rather than late.

Would Health in Mind offer this sort of therapy?

Not in this form. As the East Sussex NHS Talking Therapies service it is free and self-referred and works through shorter structured courses for anxiety and depression. Extended work on attachment and identity sits outside that. For anything more serious, your GP is the route to secondary care.

I came to Hastings to get away from my family and it still runs my life. How?

Distance moves the people and leaves the rules in place. What a family teaches about being wanted, being safe and being permitted to need things becomes the machinery you use afterwards, wherever you live. This work looks at those rules directly, which is what geography has never managed.

Is a year of weekly therapy realistic while I am juggling several jobs?

It can be, provided the hour is genuinely protected. A fixed weekly slot is easier to defend than a moveable one, even in a complicated week. If one job becomes impossible to work around, we would move the standing time deliberately rather than letting sessions drift and thin out.

Is deeper therapy realistic when everything around me feels precarious?

It can be, and for some people it is exactly what helps. Because sessions are online and hold a steady weekly time, the therapy can become a dependable fixture even when work and money in Hastings are uncertain, offering some ground while you look at the deeper patterns.

How soon can longer-term psychotherapy begin online in Hastings?

Soon, and without a waiting list. After a free 15-minute consultation we agree a regular weekly time and begin, usually within a week or two. The deeper work is held securely online from home, so a town at some distance from larger centres is no barrier to open-ended therapy.

What does ongoing psychotherapy cost compared with the NHS?

Sessions are £80 for 60 minutes, with 90 and 120-minute options at £100 and £120, after a free 15-minute consultation. NHS therapy is usually shorter and can involve a wait, whereas open-ended private work with Bradley continues at your own pace for as long as it helps.

Behind a colourful, creative front there can be private struggle. Can deeper work help with that?

It can. Where an outwardly vivid life sits next to real hardship, longer therapy looks beneath the surface at the patterns underneath. Online sessions keep the same weekly time whatever the season brings, with nothing to travel to, so the deeper exploration has room to unfold.

Online Psychotherapy in Hastings, 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 London & South East: Eastbourne. See all of London & South East.

People who come for psychotherapy in Hastings often also look at counselling and therapy, depression counselling and trauma counselling.

There is more on this in my writing: dislocation and the modern world.

For anyone near the coast, the same psychotherapy runs in person in Brighton. Every area covered is listed separately.