INDIVIDUAL THERAPY

Finding the right therapist can be a daunting challenge but now you have found us, we would like to welcome you in and give you a friendly tour of our practice and the people who work here.
Below, you can find a brief description of what’s involved in therapy, how therapy/counselling can help you – in the good times as well as the bad – how to choose the right therapist for you and how the sessions at Kensington work.
Do take a look around our practice and if you have any questions or would like any more info do get in contact with our practitioners. We would be more than happy to help you on your journey to a better, more fulfilled life.

What’s involved

Both psychotherapy and counselling aim to improve the quality of your life. They involve regular meetings with a trained professional who helps you to build a healthier, more productive and joyful life. Psychotherapy and counselling require commitment and courage, they will not provide a quick fix but they can lead you to a place where you feel more satisfied and your life is in your hands.

When can you benefit from psychotherapy and counselling?

When you are struggling. You may be feeling “stuck,” stressed, helpless, inadequate or disoriented because of your current life situation, or because a traumatic experience from your past, which you may only be vaguely aware of, is holding you back.
When you want to improve your wellbeing, psychotherapy and counselling are excellent ways to explore your potential and to make an already decent life even better.

For the hard times. When you are going through a hard time, the therapist/counsellor will support you in a warm, non-judgmental way with respect, empathy and acceptance. They will also help you resolve or mitigate destructive patterns in your thinking, attitudes, emotional reactions, physical experiences or the way you relate to others. Therapy will help you develop new healthier ways to get on with your life.

How Couples Therapy Helps New Parents Manage the Pressures of Starting a Family

Becoming parents brings both excitement and unexpected challenges for couples. Many find the pressures of parenthood, sleepless nights, and changing roles can strain their relationship. Couples therapy for new parents provides a supportive space to navigate these challenges, strengthen the relationship, and prepare for the emotional ups and downs of becoming parents.

Healing Through Feeling: Integrating Mind, Body, and Emotions

Healing isn’t just about thinking or analyzing—it begins with feeling. Our emotions influence how we communicate, behave, and relate to ourselves and others, often in ways we don’t fully notice. By integrating mind, body, and emotions, we can reconnect with our inner experiences, release trapped emotional energy, and cultivate deeper awareness, balance, and wellbeing.

Why am I feeling so anxious? Understanding anxiety as a natural part of grief

Grief can bring a wide range of emotions, many of them unexpected and overwhelming. One often overlooked response is anxiety, which is a completely natural part of coping with the loss of someone close. This guide explores how anxiety can appear during grief, why it happens, and offers gentle suggestions for support and self-care.

The Body Remembers: A Somatic Healing Approach to Emotional Pain

The mind and body are deeply connected, and emotions we ignore or suppress do not simply disappear—they often get stored in the body. Over time, these unresolved feelings can manifest as physical tension, discomfort, or illness, signaling the need for healing. Individuals who are disconnected from their emotions or who carry past trauma may notice these feelings emerging somatically, revealing the profound link between emotional and physical health. By recognizing how unprocessed emotions show up in the body, we open the door to deeper healing, resilience, and overall well-being.

Just Breathe—Or Is It Deeper? How Breathwork Helps You Heal and Reconnect

Modern life can leave our nervous systems in overdrive—especially if we’re carrying unresolved trauma or chronic stress. Breathwork for trauma healing offers a gentle yet powerful way to reconnect with your body, calm your mind, and begin releasing what no longer serves you—one conscious breath at a time.

Discovering Autism at 50: My Journey to Late Diagnosis and Self-Acceptance

In this deeply personal piece, the author reflects on the experience of being diagnosed with autism at the age of 50. Through moments of recognition, grief, and ultimately self-acceptance, they explore what it means to reframe a lifetime of experiences through the lens of neurodivergence—and the freedom that can come with finally understanding yourself.

The Mind-Body Connection in Therapy

The mind-body connection is a powerful and often underutilized tool in therapy. By understanding how mental and physical states are intertwined, therapists can help clients achieve deeper healing and overall well-being. This article explores the significance of the mind-body connection in therapeutic practice and offers insights on how integrating this approach can enhance the effectiveness of treatment.

From Fear to Confidence: Managing Maths Anxiety Effectively

Math anxiety is a common challenge, but it doesn’t have to hold you back—especially when it comes to exams. Recognizing the signs of math anxiety is the first step toward overcoming it and building confidence in your skills. With the right strategies and support, you can break the cycle of fear and approach math with a more positive mindset. Whether you’re preparing for a test or looking to improve your relationship with numbers, there are ways to manage anxiety and succeed.

Is my therapist racist?

Race and racism can be particularly difficult topics to address and assess within the therapeutic relationship. Although all therapists are expected to reflect on and minimise their own biases, racial or otherwise, it’s not possible to entirely mitigate them.

Embracing Neurodiversity: How I Practice a Neuro-Affirming Approach to Counselling

As a late-diagnosed AuDHD (autistic and ADHD) counsellor, I completed my training before there was much awareness of neurodivergence. My own therapists did not pick up on my neurodivergence, and so, for many years, I put all my social anxiety, overwhelm, black and white thinking, boom and bust ways of working etc down to a dysfunctional upbringing.

For the good times. However, therapy is not only for the hard times when life seems to be falling apart, it can be an enriching experience in itself. It can, for instance, help you with:

expanding your awareness, enabling you to accept yourself and become a true friend to yourself;
working towards healthier self-esteem and better self-care;
improving already functional relationships with your loved ones;
promoting healthy changes in your career by exploring what you need to progress, helping you overcome fears and interpersonal problems;
generally becoming more aware of your purpose, beliefs and emotional reality, which will often return excitement and inspiration to your life.

Psychotherapy or counselling?

All of our practitioners in West London offer individual counselling or psychotherapy.

The terms psychotherapy and counselling are often used interchangeably but there are some differences.

Counselling tends to be shorter-term and focuses on supporting you through a current difficult experience such as bereavement, illness, divorce, and milder mental health dysfunctions.

Psychotherapy typically involves a more in-depth process of self-exploration, for example, looking at how ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that formed in early life are affecting you now and what new attitudes and skills you can develop to live a happier and healthier life. A great benefit of psychotherapy is its long-lasting effect. Apart from helping you to cope better now, you can learn and practice new skills that will become a part of you and expand your potential.

People come for counselling and psychotherapy for many reasons. Some of the most common reason include:

anxiety
depression
loss and bereavement
alcohol, drug, food, exercise and pornography addictions
relationship and sexual difficulties
problems with anger
insomnia and stress

In counselling and psychotherapy sessions, the work involves talking with a therapist and exploring with the many different aspects of a person’s life experiences. This helps them to understand themselves more deeply, including what has shaped them – why they think, feel and behave in certain ways. It also helps people to learn new, healthier ways to cope with life’s stresses, such as hurt, disappointment, conflict, and loss,

Our therapists come from a variety of backgrounds and trainings, and so have approaches that vary a little, but they will all work, broadly, in a similar way, which is welcoming, professional, supportive, containing and respectful.

Therapy/counselling sessions normally take place at the same time and place on a weekly basis and last 50 minutes. At the first session, you will discuss what you want to focus on and will have an opportunity to ask the therapist how they work. You can decide together on a structure for the work or choose to take a route of more free exploration. Your therapist will support you in finding what works best for you.

Details about the various approaches and techniques practised by the Kensington practitioners can be found in their individual profiles. There is no right or wrong to have therapy, so take a look and choose a therapist whose working method seems to chime with you. Whatever approach the practitioner adheres to, they will give you their full attention during sessions and commit to providing a warm, safe and non-judgmental space for your exploration.

Someone coming for counselling and psychotherapy in our West London practice can expect a confidential, respectful environment in which they will be supported by a skilled professional to speak about whatever they wish, and to express and explore their feelings, safely and productively, in a variety of ways.