Edward Hewitt-Symonds

I am not currently taking on new clients and looking to take a sabbatical from March 2025 to September 2025, so unavailable during this time to work with clients.

I understand the difficulties and anxieties in working through challenges and issues on your own, issues which may be starting to affect your personal life, relationships, work or more specific issues such as bereavement, relationship issues such as separation or divorce, or work related issues such as stress, redundancy or retirement.

You may be hoping that whatever the challenges facing you, that these just sort themselves out on their own, while continuing to live a life of quiet desperation.

You may find asking for help is something you have never done before, and in this you are not alone, and taking that first courageous step to reach out and ask for help may be your first step on a journey to working through these challenges and towards the life you want and hope for.

You are looking for reassurance and someone who wants to try to understand you, not judge you, who is willing to listen, and not offer off-the-shelf solutions, and recognises that you are a unique individual who may be going through a difficult time in your life but one who I always believe can find the strength within you to come through the challenges life sometimes throws at us all.

Counselling can be the first step towards finding the right path for you, to get to a place which feels safer and enables you to live the life you want.

My counselling practice combines person-centred and humanistic approaches but the core of this is built around offering a safe and secure relationship, and one in which you will feel able to share challenging thoughts, emotions and feelings, which will be received with respect, understanding and acceptance.

I work with a wide range of adult clients aged from 25 to 80, from many backgrounds. None of us are immune from challenges which may affect us at any point in our life, some of which sometimes require some support to help you to move forward.

I do not work with children or young people, so anyone under the age of 18, but can point you in the direction of colleagues who do work specifically with this age range of clients.

I do have a specific interest in clients from a business background, so business owners/business employees. Our working hours take up so much of our lives that when challenges start to get in the way, it can have a damaging impact, for a business owner trying to run their business, or for an employee just trying to earn a living.

Running your own business can sometimes feel like the loneliest place in the world with all the responsibilities involved in keeping it running, finding more business and getting paid for it, looking after your workforce, never mind the red tape and increasing regulation businesses face. And very often forgotten in all this, are the business owners own family and the effect on them.

Throughout my own career in business I have experienced some of these challenges, and seen how they have affected not only me but also other people in business, business colleagues and their families.

Counselling can help to make sense of this and who you really are, whether the challenge is an ongoing one, or after an event like redundancy or retirement, or when a combination of challenges takes you towards burning out, and wondering where to go and what to do next.

I understand you may be feeling nervous or uncertain about starting counselling so before we agree to book a first session, I encourage all potential clients to telephone me, to see whether counselling is right for you right now, or whether some other form of support might be more appropriate; there is no charge for this initial telephone conversation.

I do not normally use assessment forms, and it is not necessary to bring anything with you. Sometimes clients do bring things they wish to share, something you have written or read, something you might have drawn or photographed, maybe something you have picked up like a rock or shell, especially if you feel it might help you explain a feeling or help you to explore an issue you are facing.