Portsmouth · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Psychotherapy for Portsmouth
Psychotherapy is the slower, open-ended kind of work, for when the same hurt keeps turning up in a new form. From Portsmouth we'd usually meet by secure video at a fixed hour each week, with my room in Hove a direct train ride away for an occasional session. BACP registers me as a counsellor, and with UKCP I'm a student member, still training towards registration as a psychotherapist.
The practical facts for Portsmouth
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Portsmouth by car
- About 69 minutes with clear roads (48.4 miles); longer at busy times.
- By train
- Direct trains from Portsmouth & Southsea to Hove.
- Free NHS talking therapy
- NHS Talking Therapies Portsmouth, 0300 123 3934
- 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.
A city that keeps its history on display
Portsmouth keeps its past in plain view, in the Historic Dockyard and the old streets of Old Portsmouth.
Your own history can be much harder to look at. You might be in your thirties and still go silent whenever someone raises their voice, the way you did as a child in a small house in Fratton. You might have come to the University of Portsmouth, stayed on after graduating, and noticed that each relationship stalls at roughly the same point. You might work at Queen Alexandra Hospital, the steady pair of hands on every shift, and never once let anyone look after you. Or you might have served out of HMNB Portsmouth and found that habits which kept you going aboard sit badly at home. When a pattern has followed you through more than one job and more than one relationship, it usually needs longer than a short course, and psychotherapy allows for that.
What months of weekly work from Portsmouth involves
Longer work has a different rhythm from short-term counselling, and no set number of sessions. In the early months I'll ask about your history, including the parts you usually leave out, and we'll notice together how the old pattern shows up between us as well as in the rest of your life, because that is often where it can be seen most clearly. Later we can turn towards what the pattern has been protecting you from, slowly enough that you can keep working, studying or parenting in between. At regular points we stop and take stock of what has moved, what hasn't, and whether to carry on. Endings are planned rather than sudden, and we agree them together. From this distance the work has practical shapes too. If you serve, sea time can take weeks out of the diary, so we decide in advance how to pause and how to pick the thread up again. If you work rotating shifts, we look for an hour that holds across them, or agree how to move it with notice. If you've already had help through NHS Talking Therapies Portsmouth or Compass Counselling, what you learned there is a useful place to begin.
Patterns that outlast a short course
Still the child in the house
Living a few streets from where you grew up, in Fratton or Buckland, and finding that one particular tone of voice still makes you twelve again.
Graduated, stayed, same ending
You came to the University of Portsmouth, built a life in the city, and keep watching relationships stall at the same point. Longer work asks what that point is guarding.
The steady hands at Queen Alexandra
Years of caring for patients at Queen Alexandra Hospital can sit on top of a much older habit of looking after everyone, and leave no room for anyone to look after you.
Pausing for sea time
With so much of the surface fleet based at HMNB Portsmouth, deployments interrupt a lot of diaries. We plan the gap before it comes, and the restart after it.
Public health figures for the area
These are local authority figures from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. The figures describe a whole population over a period, not any one person.
Free and low-cost support for Portsmouth
Longer work can sit beside free and low-cost help in the city. Solent Mind runs the Portsmouth Wellbeing Centre, and Compass Counselling offers a free initial assessment followed by income-based fees, at Portsmouth Central Library or online. If you need more than a weekly session can hold, your GP can talk you through NHS options.
- Free NHS talking therapyNHS Talking Therapies Portsmouth0300 123 3934Free 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 itPortsmouth Recovery Hub023 9229 4573Run by The Society of St James (SSJ) with Inclusion. Free and confidential.
- Local organisationCompass Counselling Service
For gambling, the National Gambling Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 8020 133 (NHS gambling support).
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.
What people in Portsmouth ask before starting
Is long-term psychotherapy available free on the NHS in Portsmouth?
NHS Talking Therapies Portsmouth takes self-referrals on 0300 123 3934 for anxiety and low mood, so ask them directly how long their help runs. If your difficulties are longer-standing or more complex, raise it with your GP, who can explain what the NHS offers locally. Compass Counselling is a low-cost option in the city, and privately with me, the length of the work is something we decide together.
How many months of psychotherapy would I need, starting from Portsmouth?
There isn't a fixed length. Some pieces of work run for several months and some for considerably longer, and we review together every so often so that it never simply drifts on. Once we've spoken on the free 15-minute call and agreed that longer work makes sense, we settle on a regular weekly time, and I'll be honest on that call about how soon one is free.
Would I ever need to come to Hove from Portsmouth for psychotherapy?
No. Weekly psychotherapy from Portsmouth works by secure video, and in something that runs over months, regular attendance matters far more than the room. If meeting face to face would mean something to you, the direct train from Fratton or Portsmouth and Southsea makes the odd longer session in the Hove room possible, and you can mix the two.
I'm stationed at HMNB Portsmouth. Can open-ended therapy work around deployments?
Yes, with planning. When you know the dates, we use the sessions beforehand to prepare for the break and agree how to restart. If you'll have privacy and a reliable connection while away, video sessions might continue, though it's wiser not to count on that. Therapy with me is private and independent of the Navy, apart from the narrow safety exceptions we go through in the first session.
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.
Talk through a longer piece of work first
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.