Gravesend · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Couples therapy and relationship counselling for Gravesend
For couples in Gravesend who keep having the same argument, or who have stopped arguing and stopped talking too, I offer relationship counselling by secure video. You can sit side by side at one screen or join from two places, and one of you can begin alone. My only room is in Hove, so meeting there would be a rare, planned choice.
The practical facts for Gravesend
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Gravesend by car
- About 79 minutes with clear roads (64.9 miles); longer at busy times.
- By train
- From Gravesend, change at London Bridge for trains towards Brighton and Hove.
- Free NHS talking therapy (for one of you)
- NHS Talking Therapies Kent and Medway, 0333 091 0414
- 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.
Rotas, river hours and the St Pancras line
Working life in Gravesend doesn't always keep office hours.
The Port of London Authority and the lifeboat crew keep Royal Terrace Pier busy at every hour, and river pilots work out of the town, so some households here plan around a rota more than a weekend. Others plan around the High Speed 1 timetable to St Pancras, with one partner gone before the children wake and home after they're asleep. Either way, the partner at home in Christianfields or King's Farm can end up running the house alone, and the hours you do share go on handing over: who needs collecting, and what the school said. After a long stretch of that, a couple can feel more like colleagues at a shift change than two people who chose each other. None of this means the relationship has failed. More often it means the time and privacy you used to talk in have been squeezed out.
Hearing both of you, then finding the loop
In the first session each of you has uninterrupted time to say what has brought you here and what you hope will change, and I make sure neither voice ends up doing all the talking. Without taking sides, we look for the pattern you both get caught in: one of you raises something, the other defends or goes quiet, and you each come away lonelier than before. Once you can both see it, we slow it down and listen for what sits under it, which is often feeling unseen or frightened about money. If one of you is caring for a parent, that strain gets its own time, because it is rarely said out loud. Where parents or in-laws are part of the strain more generally, we can look at what you each owe them and where that meets what you owe each other, and any decisions stay with the two of you. You might hope to rebuild, or to separate with less harm to the children, and either is a fair aim. If either of you is frightened of the other, couples work isn't the right setting, so please read the safety section further down first.
Pressures a Gravesend couple might be carrying
When one of you is on call
Round-the-clock work on the river at Royal Terrace Pier can leave the partner at home holding everything, and the one on shift feeling like a visitor in their own house.
Before the first fast train
When one of you leaves for the High Speed 1 service to St Pancras before anyone else is up, evenings shrink to logistics. Sessions give the two of you an hour that isn't about arrangements.
When one of you becomes a carer
If most of a parent's care falls to one of you, Imago's Kent Carers Support can help that partner in their own right, while sessions look at what it is doing to you both.
Saturdays at Stonebridge Road
Every Ebbsfleet United game for one of you, a weekend alone with the children for the other. A row about time can carry a quieter question about who comes first.
If you are afraid of your partner
Couples counselling is not safe or suitable where one partner is afraid of the other. You can book the free call on your own. What you tell me on your own is not passed to your partner without your agreement, except where someone's safety is at serious risk; I explain those limits on the free call. In your message, tell me the safest way and time to contact you. Video sessions from a shared home are not private if you could be overheard or your devices are checked. If you are in immediate danger, call 999.
If there is violence, threats or controlling behaviour, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 2000 247. The Men's Advice Line is on 0808 801 0327. If you are worried about your own behaviour towards a partner, the Respect Phoneline is on 0808 802 4040 (Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm).
Free and low-cost support for Gravesend
Relationships Medway and North Kent (RMNK), formerly Relate Medway and North Kent, is the local relationship charity, so it's worth asking what they can offer. If one of you wants help alone, North Kent Mind Counselling and Therapy Services offers low-cost individual counselling. Imago supports a partner who has become a carer. If drink or drugs in one of your lives is what you keep circling, the Kenward Trust supports friends, family and loved ones.
- Free NHS talking therapy (for one of you)NHS Talking Therapies Kent and Medway0333 091 0414Free 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 itWest Kent community drug and alcohol service (Change, Grow, Live)0330 128 1113Run by Change Grow Live (CGL). Free and confidential.
Private counselling with me can run alongside any of these; you do not have to choose one or the other.
If you need urgent help now
If you need help right now, please don't wait for a session.
Locally, the Release the Pressure Helpline - Kent is on 0800 107 0160. Local drop-in crisis support: Kent and Medway Safe Havens (Mental Health Matters); Dartford Safe Haven (Mental Health Matters) (check opening times before you go).
If you, or someone you live with, drink heavily every day, or take drugs such as benzodiazepines or GHB daily, do not stop suddenly without medical advice. Withdrawal can cause seizures and can be dangerous. Your GP or the local drug and alcohol service can arrange medically assisted withdrawal. Call 999 or go to A&E if someone in withdrawal is shaking visibly, unusually restless or agitated, confused, seeing or hearing things that are not there, or has a fit. For milder symptoms, such as a slight tremor or sweating, contact your GP or NHS 111 the same day (NHS guidance). Counselling works alongside medical support, not instead of it.
What people in Gravesend ask before starting
Is there a Relate service near Gravesend, or something like it?
The former Relate Medway and North Kent now goes by Relationships Medway and North Kent, often called RMNK, and it is the local relationship charity to ask about options nearer home. I'm not connected to it. With me, couples sessions from Gravesend happen by secure video, and it's entirely reasonable to speak to both and choose whatever suits the two of you.
My partner's shifts in Gravesend change every week. Can we still have couples sessions?
Yes. Video removes the travel, which leaves only finding the hour. If the rota is published ahead, we can book a few sessions at a time around it, and on weeks one of you is at work you can each join from a private room on your own device. A regular rhythm matters more than a fixed day, so tell me about the pattern on the first call.
If an evening at home in Gravesend gets too much for one of us, where can we turn?
If anyone is in danger, call 999. Samaritans of Medway, Gravesham and Swale answer on 116 123 at any hour. The nearest Safe Haven listed for Gravesend is Dartford Safe Haven at 18 Hythe Street, which opens each evening from 6pm until 11pm for anyone aged 18 or over. If either of you is afraid of the other, please read the safety section on this page before anything else.
Only one of us is ready. Is it worth starting couples work from Gravesend alone?
You can. Book the free 15-minute call by yourself, and I'll tell you plainly when I have a regular time free. Working alone, we concentrate on the half of the pattern that's yours: what you do when the old argument starts, and what you've stopped asking for. If your partner decides to join later, we'll agree first how to make that fair to them.
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.
One call, whichever of you makes it
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.