LOCATION: Home-based consulting room (Patcham)
AVAILABILITY: Monday-Thursday daytimes & evenings
PRICE: £55 per session
SPECIALISMS:
Sex and relationships
Anxiety and depression
Families & self esteem
Boarding school syndrome
Addiction & dependencies
Anger - understanding & managing
Abuse - mental, emotional & sexual
Bereavement
Career counselling
Panic attacks
Self-esteem
Separation and Divorce
Sexuality

Training

James is an experienced and accredited counsellor with the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP). His training has been rigorous and externally accredited. He was awarded the Tunbridge Wells Counselling Centre Certificate in Psychodynamic Counselling in 2014 and the Diploma in 2016. He has been counselling individual clients since then.

He believes that continuing professional development is important and regularly attend trainings and seminars to extend his knowledge and keep up to date with current thinking.

James abides by the BACP's code of ethics and in line with this his work is regularly supervised by a registered and qualified supervisor.

Approach

The Counselling relationship is central to James’s work. Each client is unique and what happens in a session is co-created between us.

Some of the following might be touched on:

• Events in your past and what sense you made of them.

• The story of your past and how you were brought up.

• Your current ways of relating to others and what these may mean.

• Your internal world and how it feels inside.

• Dreams and fantasies.

Sex and relationships

How we relate to others in all kinds of relationships, but particularly in our closest reveal patterns and a style of relating that we may not be aware of. If similar issues keep arising in relationships it may be time to pause and reflect.

Our sexuality is one facet of relating that can become troubling because it is so central and potentially charged. There are many problematic aspects of our sex lives that appear to be just about sex but are actually about relating; for example post-coital depression, premature ejaculation and porn use that you are unhappy with. Ultimately, the most important thing is how we relate to ourselves.

Anxiety and depression

Anxiety and depression are two general terms but we certainly know if we are troubled by them. Sometimes anxiety may descend in an incapacitating frightening way for no apparent reason, or be a fairly constant weight that shuts down our ability to engage with life. In this second sense it can merge into depression causing a loss of or questioning of meaning, which can happen at any age. James has worked with these different guises of anxiety and depression over many years and believes it is possible to understand what these symptoms are trying to tell us and find ways to move on.

Families and Self-Esteem

Family life is complex. They can be wonderful, sustaining environments that help you set sail in life and they can be difficult places full of anger, persecution and sibling rivalry. And they can be dead, lonely places. For better or worse our families shape us in all sorts of ways: how we relate to others, and the world, what kind of work we do, our interests, how we do relationships, our sexuality and whether or not we have children ourselves. And most importantly how we relate to ourselves. Feeling worthless or relentlessly self-critical may have its roots in family and childhood. Together we can begin to untangle this and start to find clarity and self-confidence.

Other information

James’s other interests include gardening, hiking and listening and playing music which he finds very therapeutic.