Jake Russell

I currently have limited availability for new clients. Please get in touch for more information.

About me

I am a qualified Neurosomatic Psychotherapist and counsellor, which is a mouthful of a way for saying my approach to therapy is based on neuroscience and an understanding of how the human nervous system impacts our experience.

The brain-body-mind connection

The nervous system connects our brains, bodies, and environments—and somehow this complex set of interconnections gives rise to our minds.  

Whatever’s on our mind therefore also presents itself in the body (and brain) in some form, whether as stress, tension, panic, pain, or illness, or indeed as a sense of contentment, ease, and wellbeing. Likewise, our interior life tends to reflect back at us in our external environment—in our relationships, home, work and so on.

I see these many connections as some of the gateways onto the path of discovery and healing, and they’ll come clear in therapy as you and I begin to form our own relationship to one another.

I have experience of working with people with trauma, depression, anxiety, isolation, identity, relationships, belonging, meaning, purpose, and other issues.

My credentials

I am a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP), an accredited member of the National Council of Integrative Psychotherapist (NCIP), and I am working towards full accreditation with the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). I adhere to each organisation’s ethical framework for good practise.

I am currently studying for a Masters Advanced Clinical Practise in Psychotherapy and Counselling.

Each session is 50 minutes and in essence we'll simply be talking. You can come to speak about whatever's on your mind, whatever's happening in your life.

Very often I find that someone comes to the first few sessions full of things to talk about and then after this initial period they find themselves thinking they don't really have much to talk about. 

However, I have also found that in almost every case (including from my own therapy), this tends to be the work of our inner judge or critic shutting down the part of us that knows something isn't quite right in our lives, that wants to be freer from this restrictive inner critic, but the critic is telling us that whatever's on our mind isn't important enough or worthy of therapy, and so we sort of shame ourselves into silence. It's a kind of in-built protection against taking the risk to really go deeper.

And over and over, I have found that when someone just allows themselves to begin a session with whatever happens to be at the top of their mind at the time, however seemingly insignificant or mundane, it invariably leads down into the deeper parts of themselves which are often the most hurt, silenced and afraid parts but are truly yearning for air and light, for the time and space to voice their needs, fears, hopes and wishes. And so I see a large part of my job as encouraging and supporting this process of self-permission, and self-expression. 

This means our work together will be a kind of exploration of what it is to be you, as a whole complex person, always with the broad goal in mind of increasing and deepening your understanding of yourself, which then opens up a wider range of possibilities and potentials for you in your life. 

Our first session will be about getting to know one another. I'll ask questions about your life to begin to understand your history and what has brought you to therapy now.  I'll also be interested in what you want from therapy, what a good outcome would be for you. By the end of the opening session we'll have a good idea of where we go from there and you'll hopefully know if you feel comfortable working with me further.

I offer one-to-one sessions in East Dulwich/Peckham Rye; and on Zoom.