Therapy for adults and couples in Brighton & Hove

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 in central Brighton and Hove, as well as online therapy, giving you the flexibility to choose what feels most accessible and comfortable for you.

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.

Whatever brings us to therapy, the decision to seek it often expresses an underlying, perhaps unrecognised, kind of hope: a sense that life could be different, even if 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.

How I work

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 and pluralistic. I draw upon Person-Centred Therapy, Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, Existential Therapy, Narrative Therapy and Buddhist Psychology, as well as ideas from a range of related fields. Rather than imposing a rigid agenda or relying on a predetermined set of tools or skills, I adapt the way I work to what seems useful for you.

Whatever direction our work takes, it is 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.

You can read more about the ideas and principles that guide my work on the My Approach page.

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. Our conversations might move between past and present, significant experiences and recurring concerns, difficult emotions and beliefs, relationships, identity 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.

You can read more about what working together might look like on the Individual Therapy page.

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.

My role is not to decide which of you is right. Together, we can look more closely at how you communicate and respond to one another, what happens when conflict develops, and how the ways you relate to one another have changed over time. Sometimes the hope is to restore closeness or trust and find a different way of being together. At other times, counselling can help two people recognise that a relationship has run its course and find a more thoughtful way forward.

You can read more about how I work with relationships on the Couples Counselling page.

Therapy in context

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 different 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. I therefore 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 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.

Practical details

Individual therapy costs £65 per session and couples counselling costs £95 per session. Face-to-face appointments are available in central Hove on Church Road and central Brighton on Ship Street, and I also work online.

If this resonates with you, we should talk. You are welcome to contact me for an informal introductory conversation to get a sense of whether we might work well together.

Email: richard@actualise-counselling.com
Telephone: 07565 353389

“Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future.”

— Douglas Adams


Actualise Psychotherapeutic Counselling — individual therapy and couples counselling in Brighton & Hove and online.