Stephen Callus

I am available for in-person session on Tuesdays in Central London (near Waterloo Station)

I am available for online sessions, via Zoom, Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays & Fridays

My in-person office is on the first floor and is accessed by stairs only as there is no lift.

Hello, as an intersectionality-informed integrative therapist, I’m aware how both society’s prejudices and adverse early life experiences can impact negatively on our being able to have healthier relationships with ourselves and others and a healthier sense of identity and purpose.

As a white male, I am embedded in oppressive structures in society that confer and maintain privilege and power. I am also, amongst other things, mixed-race, older and gay, and as a result have sometimes also experienced being an outsider, rendered invisible, disadvantaged and prejudiced. All these different aspects of my identity give me membership of different communities, where I think its fair to say I can feel I both belong and don’t belong.

Our start in life is also often a mixture of resources and traumas that can have, without our always being aware of it, a profound role to play in shaping how we view, understand and respond to the struggles and challenges of life.

Therapy with me will endeavour to help us both understand some of the complexity and interconnection of the particular factors that affect our wellbeing, including our deepest, often unconscious, core beliefs about the world, others, ourselves and our futures. By helping us connect to and honour our own truth and experience, therapy can help start to shift some of those baselines, enabling change, unlocking our potential and creativity, helping with discovering a sense of healing and purpose, and with living our best life as far as we can and dare.   

I have been a therapist for over 25 years, and have taught and continue to teach counselling. I have worked with a diverse range of clients and students.

There are also many different therapeutic modalities, and in my career working as an integrative therapist and tutor, I feel those approaches I have studied all have something interesting to bring to the table, all have different perspectives on what it means to be human and why we struggle and suffer.

I draw on different modalities as and when needed, though you may also have an approach or approaches in mind you’d like to focus on. See below under “Types of Therapy” for a list of modalities.   

It can often be a big step to seek counselling and therapy, and something not approached lightly. It can be an acknowledgement on some level that something is amiss and we need some help. And, asking for and seeking help, for some of us, can also be hard. It can challenge our sense of how we may like to see ourselves: being in control of our lives and usually coping with whatever life throws at us.

Our first meeting will give us an opportunity to meet, for me to learn what it is you’re struggling with currently and to see whether I may be able to help. It gives you an opportunity to see whether you might like to work with me.

You don’t have to be clear about this by the end of the first session, (you may also be deciding to have first sessions with other therapists too), or you may just like some time to decide, eg if now is the right time for you to start therapy, which is fine.

I charge the full fee for the first session, and all sessions are 60 minutes duration.

I am available for in-person session on Tuesdays in Central London (near Waterloo Station)

I am available for online sessions, via Zoom, Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays

My in-person office is on the first floor and is accessed by stairs only as there is no lift. 

Good supervision is essential to keep us aware of our blindspots, open us to a deeper understanding of the dynamics between ourselves and our clients, the ways in which the client’s wounds and our own interconnect, and how this can impact and deepen our work.

Supervision can be especially helpful when we feel stuck, and stuckness can be seen as an opening to deeper understanding.

I have been a supervisor for over 25 years, have maintained a therapy practice during this time and have taught and continue to teach counselling. I have worked with a diverse range of clients, students and issues.

As a supervisor I have worked with counselling and therapy students in training, individually and in groups, either as part of their course, (including helping with case-studies and live assessments, preparing for transition to professional practice when the training course comes to an end), or in counselling placements. I work with qualified counsellors and therapists too and in a couple of cases I have supported their successful application for BACP accreditation.

In addition to exploring and supporting the therapist’s work with clients, I have also worked with supervisees in reflecting on where they are in their practice, including when decisions around taking breaks have come up, managing caseloads, and in helping supervisees both assess and develop practitioner resilience.

As well as therapists and counsellors I have also supervised telephone abuse helpline workers, palliative care multidisciplinary staff, and worked in hospice and community-based bereavement counselling services, alcohol counselling and general counselling services. I managed a bereavement counselling service for 8 years.

I offer regular supervision. And currently I can offer one-to-one in-person supervision (near Waterloo) on Tuesdays, or online (see above for availability). 

I have always been interested in the many different therapeutic modalities that form part of our profession, and in my career working as an integrative therapist, supervisor and tutor, I feel the approaches I have studied all have something interesting to bring to the table; all have different perspectives on what it means to be human and why we struggle and suffer.

I’m also mindful of the role of the cultural or psychosocial context of the issues clients bring and the ways we can all have, including us as therapists, unconscious biases and assumptions. As well as thinking about the “inner world” experiences of vulnerability, powerlessness, and defences against feeling and intimacy, (the client’s and the therapist’s), part of supervision, for me, also includes looking at the “outer world” dynamics of power, prejudice and oppression, as these are encountered both in the outer world and present themselves in the consulting room.

Supervision has been immensely helpful to me over the years, given me a compass-bearing that enables me to continue in my journeys with clients, it enables me to continue learning, growing and developing creatively as a practitioner, and is vital to help in working safely and ethically, so that clients get the best we can offer them.