Lewisham · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Psychotherapy for Lewisham
If you live in Lewisham and keep arriving at the same place in your life, perhaps the same kind of relationship or the same slump after every success, psychotherapy is slower work on why that keeps happening. I'm registered with BACP and hold student membership of UKCP, and from here we'd meet weekly by secure video.
The practical facts for Lewisham
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Lewisham by car
- About 85 minutes with clear roads (65.5 miles); longer at busy times.
- By train
- From Lewisham, change at London Bridge for trains towards Brighton and Hove.
- Free NHS talking therapy
- Lewisham Talking Therapies, 020 3228 1350
- Fees
- £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90, £120 for 120. The first 15-minute call is free.
- Registration
- BACP registered member, no. 109340 (check the register); UKCP student member in advanced psychotherapy training.
Every line out of Lewisham, and the one you always take
Lewisham station gives you plenty of ways out.
Southeastern trains run to Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Victoria, and the DLR heads off towards Canary Wharf and Bank. Yet on most mornings you probably catch the same train, stand on the same part of the platform and change at the same place, without ever deciding to. The mind keeps routes like that too. Someone criticises you and you go quiet for two days. Someone gets close and you suddenly find yourself busy. Patterns like these are usually learned early, and at the time they did a job for you. In psychotherapy we notice the routes you take without choosing them and look at where they were first laid down, so that taking a different one starts to become a choice you could make.
What longer work looks like, and exactly where my training stands
Psychotherapy with me has no fixed number of sessions. We meet at the same hour each week and follow what you bring, paying attention to what keeps coming back. Over months, a complaint about a manager or a partner often turns out to be older than either of them, and the feeling it stirs can be traced to a family where being useful, or keeping out of the way, was how you got by. Sometimes the pattern shows up with me, as a worry that you're boring me or an urge to cancel when a session gets close to something. We can look at that as it happens, which is often where the most useful work is done. One approach I may draw on is Internal Family Systems, which helps you become acquainted with the parts of yourself that keep an old pattern running. My BACP registration and more than 25 years of practice sit behind this work, and because my UKCP membership is a student one, I am not on the UKCP register. If a short course with Lewisham Talking Therapies or a block of sessions at the Quaggy service eased things, and the same difficulty came back, open-ended work can pick up from there.
Old patterns that might bring you from Lewisham
Caring for patients, never yourself
Years of shifts at University Hospital Lewisham, or any job built on looking after others, and a habit of putting your own needs last that began long before the job.
Staying on after Goldsmiths
You came to New Cross to study, stayed in the borough and built a life, and still feel like the student who might be asked to leave.
Family a short bus ride away
Your parents still live in Catford or Lee Green, and each Sunday visit puts you back in a role you thought you'd outgrown. We can look at why it still fits so easily.
When a session leaves things stirred
Deeper work can unsettle you between sessions. For an evening that gets heavy, South London and Maudsley's crisis text service is on WhatsApp at 0303 330 1511 and accepts texts to 80991.
Free and low-cost support for Lewisham
If weekly private sessions aren't possible right now, Lewisham Talking Therapies offers free, shorter help for anxiety and low mood, and SEL Mind Connect runs peer groups and one-to-one advisers for people referred by a GP, South London and Maudsley or Talking Therapies. If an old death sits under the pattern, the national helpline run by Cruse Bereavement Support is free to ring. None of them stops you starting longer private work as well.
- Free NHS talking therapyLewisham Talking Therapies020 3228 1350Free NHS talking therapy for anxiety, low mood and related difficulties. You can refer yourself, with no GP referral needed.
- If drinking or drug use is part of itNew Direction drug and alcohol recovery service (Lewisham)020 8314 5566Run by Change Grow Live (CGL). Free and confidential.
- Local organisationLewisham Outreach Service (Together for Mental Wellbeing), Lewisham VCSE Cooperative
For gambling, the National Gambling Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 8020 133 (NHS gambling support).
Private counselling with me can run alongside any of these; you do not have to choose one or the other.
If someone at home is hurting, threatening or controlling you, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 2000 247.
If you need urgent help now
If you need help right now, please don't wait for a session.
The South London NHS Mental Health Crisis Text Service (SLaM) is another option: WhatsApp 0303 330 1511 or text 80991.
What people in Lewisham ask before starting
Is there free long-term psychotherapy in Lewisham, or only short courses?
I can't name a free open-ended psychotherapy service in Lewisham. For anxiety and low mood, Lewisham Talking Therapies accepts self-referrals on 020 3228 1350, and the Quaggy Community Counselling Service offers low-cost counselling to adults in Lewisham or Greenwich. It's worth asking each how many sessions they normally offer. If you want weekly work with no set end, private psychotherapy is the other option.
Can I do psychotherapy by video from Lewisham, or does it need to be face to face?
Video works, and from Lewisham it's how we'd meet. The Hove room is roughly 85 minutes' drive, or a train via London Bridge, which is too far to keep up weekly for months. The things that let longer work deepen, a fixed hour and a relationship you come to trust, carry over to a screen well. If you'd like one meeting in person, a 90 or 120-minute session in Hove can sit inside the online work.
What are your psychotherapy qualifications, if I'm choosing a therapist from Lewisham?
I'm a registered member of BACP with more than 25 years in practice, and I hold student membership of UKCP. That status means I'm still completing psychotherapy training and am not UKCP-registered, and I'd rather you heard that here than found out later. If a particular register matters to you, check it with anyone you're considering, and questions about my own training are welcome during the free call.
What's the first step towards psychotherapy from Lewisham, and how long before we'd begin?
On the free 15-minute call, you only need to describe briefly the thing that keeps coming round. I'll tell you plainly whether I have a weekly slot now or when one is likely to open, and if it suits us both, the first session follows. You don't need a referral, and how long we carry on is something we keep talking about as the work takes shape.
How much do sessions cost, and is the first call free?
Sessions are £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90 minutes and £120 for 120 minutes, the same in person in Hove or by video. The first 15-minute call is free, with no obligation to book. There is no NHS referral needed to see me privately.
A short call about the pattern you'd like to change
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.