Katie Bardes

I am a registered and accredited counsellor, psychotherapist and executive coach, based in Cambridge.

I am originally from London and have lived and worked in Cambridge since 2001. I am married and have two teenagers and my therapeutic work is informed by my own experience of the joys and challenges of family life.

With a business background in the careers service, the telecoms industry and the chemical sciences, my experience includes designing and delivering organisational development programmes for individuals and teams based in the UK and internationally. Since 2013, I have run my own business working with clients in public, private and charitable organisations as well as in higher education.

My training and practice:

My work is underpinned by my training in Social Anthropology, Human Resource Development and Humanistic Psychotherapy.

I completed my training in Humanistic Counselling and Psychotherapy at Spectrum Therapy in London. I integrate a number of Humanistic approaches within my practice, including Gestalt, Person Centred and Transactional Analysis. My approach is also strongly influenced by Formative Psychology, developed by Stanley Keleman. This is a way of working which looks at how we embody our experience and how we can work with our embodied experience as a way of better knowing ourselves and learning to make and manage change.

I have worked at Lawrence Way Community Counselling Service, an NHS (IAPT) funded service; at Cambridge Counselling Service; and in private practice.

I completed my coach training with the Academy of Executive Coaching (AoEC) in 2014, and the more advanced Professional Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching in 2024.  I have experience coaching individuals and groups at all stages of their career. I am a certified Clean Coach with the Institute of Leadership and Management, and accredited with the International Coaching Federation.

Please see my website for more details on how I work: www.katiebardes.co.uk

As a coach, counsellor and psychotherapist, I bring a warm, compassionate and practical approach that focuses on what is important for you. I see you as an individual with your own unique story and set of experiences that inform how you relate to yourself and to others in the world.  I work with you to build clarity on what you want for yourself and how this fits within the bigger picture of your life. 

Whatever your challenges are, I provide a confidential and non-judgemental space for you to talk them through, to gain clarity and to feel supported in finding ways of managing, responding and relating to yourself and others.  Working in this way can feel both exciting and unsettling.  It requires curiosity, courage and patience as well as a willingness to be open to experiment and practice.

In my counselling and psychotherapy practice, I work with a wide range of personal and professional issues.  I generally suggest meeting weekly for an initial 6 sessions and then reviewing how the process is supporting you and how best to proceed.  For some people 6 sessions feels enough, while others will prefer to work for much longer.  

As an executive coach, our coaching focuses primarily on your professional goals. I typically work with coaching clients for programmes of 6 sessions, but also offer longer term work.  Sessions tend to be scheduled on a monthly basis, with the client actively engaging in the actions they have set for themselves in between sessions. 

I offer face to face sessions in Cambridge as well online availability.

I am happy to offer you an initial conversation or ‘chemistry session’ of 30 minutes FREE of charge. This gives us a chance to  meet one another, to explore what you are looking for and any questions you may have before deciding if and how we might work together.