Therapists
Hello, I’m Richard, an integrative therapist with over 17 years’ experience. I work with adults of different ages and backgrounds who are experiencing emotional or relational difficulties, coping with the effects of past experiences, navigating neurodivergence or major life changes, or simply trying to understand their experience and explore how they might want life to be different. I offer individual therapy and couples counselling, either in person from my practice in central Hove or online, giving you the flexibility to choose what feels most accessible and comfortable for you. Individual therapy sessions are £65 and couples counselling sessions are £95. What brings us to therapy? Some of us seek therapy because we’re struggling with depression or persistent anxiety. Some of us have learnt that keeping control of everything around us is the safest way to cope, or become so accustomed to putting other people’s needs first that our own have become difficult to recognise. At other times, we can feel overwhelmed by emotion, undermined by self-criticism, or repeatedly find ourselves in relationships and situations that leave us disappointed, lonely or unfulfilled. Our difficulties don’t arise in isolation. Some are shaped by things that have happened to us. Others develop through the relationships, circumstances and environments in which we’ve had to find ways of living. Sometimes the problem isn’t simply something within us, but something about the fit between who we are and the world we’re trying to live in. For some of us, distress is also connected to what’s happening in the wider world. Anxiety about climate change, war, political or economic uncertainty and the future can become difficult to carry, while the continual demands of news, social media, digital communication and an always-connected world can leave us feeling overloaded or overwhelmed. These concerns aren’t necessarily irrational, nor does the difficulty necessarily lie within us. Therapy can give us space to explore how the world is affecting us and how we want to live within it. Often, what brings us to therapy is an underlying, perhaps unrecognised, kind of hope: a sense that life could be different, even when we can’t yet see clearly what that might look like. Therapy can give us an opportunity to make sense of things and discover different ways of living in the world. If this resonates with you, we should talk.
**About therapy** We all need to feel seen, heard and understood, especially at times when we’re struggling to make sense of things ourselves. Therapy offers a space to speak freely, explore what’s happening in your life and begin to understand what’s going on. My approach is integrative, drawing upon the core humanistic therapies — Person-Centred Therapy, Gestalt and Transactional Analysis — together with Existential Therapy, Narrative Therapy and Buddhist Psychology, as well as ideas from a range of related fields. I also work from a pluralistic perspective. No single therapeutic approach can fit every person or every situation, so rather than imposing a rigid agenda or using a predetermined set of tools or skills, I adapt the way I work to what seems useful for you. We might draw upon Buddhist psychology to explore patterns of emotional reactivity in one session, use existential approaches to think about questions of meaning or purpose in another, or range across the personal, familial and cultural stories through which you’ve learnt to understand yourself in a third. Sometimes our work may simply involve staying close to an experience until something that’s felt confusing or difficult begins to make more sense. Whatever direction our work takes, it’s guided by your goals, values and wishes. Above all, I respect your autonomy and see you as a person rather than a bundle of problems. **Individual therapy** The idea of starting therapy can feel daunting, particularly if you’ve never experienced it before. Yet therapy is also immediately recognisable, an ongoing conversation between two people. We sit together and talk, back and forth. You share what’s happening in your life and we explore it together, looking at different ways of understanding what you’re experiencing and what might help things change. Therapy is collaborative. We spend our time noticing, questioning, making connections and sometimes seeing familiar experiences differently. Our conversations might explore how you feel about yourself, your relationships with other people, or your sense of place in the world. We might move between past and present, significant experiences and recurring concerns, difficult emotions and beliefs, or broader questions about how you want to live. The aim isn’t simply to gain insight, but to develop the awareness and understanding from which meaningful change can become possible. Ultimately, meaningful change comes from taking what we discover together out into your life. **Couples counselling** Relationships can be among the most rewarding parts of our lives, but when something between us stops working they can also leave us feeling hurt, disappointed, guilty, rejected or profoundly lonely. Couples counselling creates an opportunity to explore what has happened within your relationship and to understand the distance, conflict or breaches of trust that may have developed between you. Together, we can look at how you communicate and respond to one another, identify the issues around which conflict repeatedly develops, and understand some of the ways you have come to relate to one another as your relationship has developed. Making these more visible can create opportunities to respond differently. At the heart of my approach is a commitment to supporting you both impartially. Our work might involve finding more effective ways to communicate, exploring how affection or connection might be restored, or developing greater confidence in expressing needs, wishes and boundaries. Sometimes the hope is to find a new way of being together. At other times, couples counselling can help us recognise when a relationship has run its course and find a more thoughtful and amicable way of bringing it to an end. **Inclusion and difference** None of us experiences life independently of the social and cultural worlds around us. Who we are, how other people respond to us, the opportunities available to us, and the environments in which we live can all affect us in any number of ways. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, class prejudice, cultural or religious marginalisation, and the pressures encountered by neurodivergent people can all contribute to psychological distress. Understanding our difficulties therefore sometimes means looking beyond ourselves to our relationships, circumstances and the wider conditions in which our difficulties have developed. I try to understand what you bring to therapy in the context of your life rather than assuming that the problem simply lies within you. I aim to approach questions of identity, background, culture, relationships and different ways of experiencing the world with openness and curiosity. I won’t presume to understand every aspect of who you are or the life you live, and I may not always get everything right — but I’ll remain attentive, reflective and responsive to your experience. Because you’re at the centre of what we do, we can talk openly about difference, power and inequality whenever they matter to you. **Next steps** Starting therapy doesn’t need to involve making a big commitment straight away. If you’d like to find out more about working together, call me on 07565 353389 for an informal introductory conversation or send me an email enquiry through this site. “Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future.” — Douglas Adams
I’ve been practising as a therapist since 2009 and have an established practice in central Hove, alongside offering online therapy. Alongside my clinical practice, I’ve taught on a counselling diploma course, teaching therapeutic theory and counselling skills and facilitating personal development groups. I’ve also worked as a counsellor with community-based organisations supporting people with disabilities, families affected by substance misuse, and young people who have experienced unsettled lives. Alongside my therapeutic work, I lead an interdisciplinary research programme exploring wellbeing, agency and transformative change, drawing upon psychology, cognitive science, philosophy and related fields. This research forms the basis of a book I’m currently writing and informs the way I think about therapeutic change and human flourishing.
Hove Therapy Rooms, 69 Church Road, Hove, BN3 2BB