Anne Hamlyn

I will be taking clients from the beginning of September 2023.

I am a qualified psychotherapeutic counsellor with a background in the arts and academia. I have an Master degree and PhD in Art, literature, film and psychoanalysis. My research area is trauma: both the way it informs modern experience and the way it impacts individuals.

My therapy is holistic. I provide a supportive, safe environment where you can gain a fuller, braver curiosity about who you are in your world.

I am interested in who you are as an evolving process, with both a mind and body and work with you on how to bring these into better equilibrium.  I focus on how you are in relationship with others and in the therapy and how past patterns and experiences have impacted that. 

I am interested in the way you tell your story now and your unique way of seeing and being. I aim to support you to negotiate your world, and the challenges it presents you, more choicefully and with increased awareness, even when circumstances are very difficult. 

I can help you to replace the patterns and behaviours of the past with new healthier ways of being in the present, locate the fears and hurts that underly anxiety and depression and allow you to be more fully and vibrantly 'yourself'.

I work in Wallingford South Oxfordshire, offering short and long term one-to-one therapy, both online and face to face. I also offer walk and talk and home-visit sessions where appropriate.

I offer a minimum of six weeks therapy of 50 minute sessions weekly.

I also offer an initial half hour (on-line only) introductory session free of charge so we can work out whether we can work well together and whether you want to proceed. Then I will invite you for a full introductory session during which I will assess your needs and we will formally contract our ongoing work. If we contract for longer than six weeks the work will be reviewed regularly. The work ends when the contract is complete or when a client decides they have achieved their goals and gives two weeks notice to close our therapy. We take those two weeks together to close the work and prepare for what ever comes next.

The work is collaborative and relational. I have a background in visual art so work creatively and also emphasise the body  and embodied responses in the therapy. I also work with a mindfulness based approach that focusses on breathing, awareness and a variety of grounding meditation practices designed for the client. These help the client to support themselves better day to day and also within the therapy when they face and need to work through difficult emotions, problems and experiences.

I offer an initial half hour (on-line only) introductory session free of charge so we can work out whether we can work well together and whether you want to proceed. Then I will invite you for a full introductory session (face to face or on-line) in which I will more fully assess your needs and we will formally contract our ongoing work. The first session is an opportunity for me to do a full assesment and establish more clearly whether I am the right therapist for you and how the work might take shape if we move forward. This is a collaborative process, in a sense we will 'co-diagnose' the situation and you will have an opportunity to articulate what your goals are. The first session is not usually made up of talking about a the problem in any detail but you will have a chance to get a sense of how I work and how we might interract in the room.