Ailsa Hotson

My name is Ailsa, I am a qualified BACP Psychotherapist & Counsellor who aims to create a non-judgmental, safe, collaborative space where you can connect with deeper feelings causing difficulties in your life. My approach is non-prescriptive but designed to help you find your inner resources, discover new ways of living and make positive changes to enrich your life. I am an integrative therapist and draw from a person-centred approach, I have a special interest in working with the Psychodynamic, this focuses on long-standing conflicts from the past that helps clients become self-aware and bring what is unconscious into consciousness.

People choose to have therapy for a variety of reasons, anxiety, depression, or stress, some describe feeling empty and low, stuck or beyond full up that they cannot breathe, feelings of dread or lack of meaning/purpose in life. Whatever the reason therapy is the first step in beginning to understand why you are feeling this way and what can be done to help you.

Talking to a personal friend or sharing these feelings with someone you know can make things better for the short term, but in speaking with friends it is common to feel like you have to hold back or censor what you say for a variety of reasons, this is where therapy is different.

So how can psychotherapy help you in this way? How can you change what is not working for you? Can talking to a therapist really make you feel better?

These are natural questions to ask when you are thinking of embarking on a process that requires a leap of faith to start. Change occurs when you trust in the process of therapy, the aim of really knowing and understanding yourself leads to a better 'sense' of yourself, knowing what 'feels right' for you allows you to make choices and decisions with your eyes open. Being more connected to your feelings affords you the chance to experience an authentic, truer sense of self.

Working from my home in Twickenham I provide a comfortable, safe space where my clients can share and unpack their thoughts, desires, conscious and unconscious scripts - it is a private, comfortable space to engage in with therapy. I also offer Online [zoom] and telephone counselling which can sometimes be combined with face to face depending on my clients needs and routines.

I am fully qualified to work online and do so by client choice and in times where it is not possible to work face to face. Online Qualification Awarded by the BACP and Open University

C19OT_1 Working online Coronavirus primer

I hold a Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy & a BA Hons Degree in Fine Art, so I sometimes choose to work creatively with clients that wish to explore themselves in a fluid way. I am invested in my development as an individual as well as a counsellor, therefore I regularly attend training courses and workshops as a part of my Continual Professional Development training.

I have experience working for the NHS in a prison setting during Covid-19 helping clients come to terms with trauma, ruptures in their family, child loss and bereavement. I have also supported clients within a west London agency over a two year period who have come to therapy perhaps for the first time not knowing what to expect.

I believe that Therapy is about the relationship both Client & therapist create together. The first session in therapy is about getting to know one another.

We will spend our first session [50 minutes] online looking at what has brought you to therapy - perhaps its anxiety, depression, trauma or relationship difficulties, [the list is extensive] so I would like to make sure we are a good fit & you are comfortable talking with me.

If therapy with me is the right fit then we can organise further sessions at an agreed day/time & go through our working alliance [contract] together so you have time and space to ask any questions or highlight anything you are unsure of in the therapeutic process.