Intrusive memories
Support for flashbacks, nightmares and re-experiencing.
Online Trauma Counselling · Portsmouth
Online trauma counselling for Portsmouth, by secure video. From a base in Hove I work with people across Portsmouth, from across Portsea Island, Southsea and Old Portsmouth to the streets around the Spinnaker Tower, with the same BACP-registered, confidential support as an in-person session, and no journey.

In and around Portsmouth
Life in Portsmouth
Trauma in Portsmouth often has service in it somewhere. Things survived on deployment, an incident at work, a childhood spent moving between postings: any of it can sit quietly for years and then start showing up as broken sleep, a startle response out of all proportion, or a sudden need to sit facing the door. There is also the everyday kind, unconnected to any of that, carried by people who have never been near the naval base. Either way, a tightly packed island city offers few places to be unobserved, and the habit of getting on with it runs deep here, so a great deal is carried privately for a very long time.
Areas covered
Wherever you are in Portsmouth, the work is the same, a calm, confidential space shaped around you.
The local picture
Official figures for Portsmouth, for context rather than as a description of you.
the rate of emergency hospital admissions for self-harm was 177.1 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).
Reviewed June 2026.
Trauma counselling here is gentle and led by you, drawing on methods designed for trauma including the Human Givens Rewind Technique, so a difficult memory is returned to ordinary recall.
Rather than say the same thing on every page, the substance lives on the full trauma counselling page, with the practical side for the practical questions and qualifications, registration and ethics for registration and ethics.
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.
This work is done online by secure video from Hove, so there is nothing to travel to and nobody sees you arrive. For trauma that is not a small detail. You stay where you already feel safest, you control who is in the building, and the hour ends in your own space rather than out on a pavement. If a posting takes you elsewhere, the sessions go with you unchanged, which matters when continuity is part of what makes this work.
Book a free 15-minute callWhat I help with
Support for flashbacks, nightmares and re-experiencing.
Help when your nervous system is stuck on high alert.
For when you cope by shutting down.
Healing the wound that drives the habit.
Reaching the quieter, accumulated hurts.
Working always at a pace that is led by you.
Trauma Counselling in Portsmouth
People usually make contact when something from the past has begun shaping the present without permission: avoiding a route, freezing at a noise, sleeping badly for months. You will not be asked to describe what happened. Bradley uses the Human Givens Rewind Technique, which allows a memory to be processed without a spoken account of the event, and the pace belongs entirely to you. We settle the nervous system first, so the work does not leave you exposed on the days in between. Emergency admissions for self-harm in the city ran at 177.1 per 100,000 in 2023/24, well above the England average of 117 per 100,000, which says something about how much goes unspoken here. NHS Talking Therapies Hampshire offers trauma-focused therapy on self- referral, and Solent Mind is there alongside.
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 Portsmouth, you can refer yourself directly to NHS Talking Therapies Hampshire (italk) 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.
Portsmouth questions
No. The Rewind Technique was developed so that a memory can be worked with without you describing it aloud, which is why it suits people who have never put any of it into words. You decide what gets said. Saying almost nothing about the event itself is entirely workable.
£80 covers an hour, £100 covers ninety minutes and £120 covers two hours. Some people choose the longer session so the ending is never rushed. Everything starts with a free 15-minute call, which is a chance to ask questions with nothing booked and nothing owed.
Yes. NHS Talking Therapies Hampshire, italk, provides trauma- focused treatment and takes self-referrals without a GP appointment first. Waiting times vary through the year. Holding a place there while beginning private sessions is common, and there is no conflict at all between using the two routes together.
It is. Private counselling sits outside your workplace and outside NHS records; nothing is passed to an employer and nobody is told that you attend. Bradley works to the BACP Ethical Framework, and the only limits concern immediate risk to life, which are explained clearly beforehand.
Then we slow down. Pacing is set against what your life can actually hold that week, and if support at home is thin we build the work around that rather than ignoring it. A whole session can go on steadying things, and that still counts as progress.
Very private. There is no local waiting room to be seen in and nobody on your street need know. You join securely from home, everything stays confidential, and we work through difficult experiences only as fast as feels safe for you.
Often within a week of a free consultation. Bradley works online with Portsmouth clients, so there is no clinic to reach across the island. Trauma work from your own private space, in Southsea or Fratton, can feel steadier and safer.
Trauma counselling is £80 for sixty minutes, £100 for ninety and £120 for two hours, with the longer sessions often suiting it. NHS Talking Therapies Hampshire is free but frequently oversubscribed, so many in Portsmouth begin privately to be seen sooner.
Many Portsmouth clients, including service personnel, find online trauma work just as containing, with familiar surroundings between sessions. Bradley offers some evening slots for naval routines, and the Hove room is reachable by train if meeting in person would help you feel safer.
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: Southampton, Chichester. See all of London & South East.
Related work in Portsmouth: anxiety counselling, addiction counselling and psychotherapy.
If you can reach the south coast, this work is also done face to face in Hove, where the room is — all in-person areas are listed here.