Karl Uwe Hartke

My practice hours are flexible, and I work from several different practice rooms around London Bridge, Tower Bridge and the City.

Session are usually 50 minutes, but I am open to  longer sessions for more detailed work on specific topics.

Some years ago,  I found a graffiti from the artist WRDSMTH on an old red phone box. It said: "Smile. It's an old school status update".  We use our smiles for many different reasons, from genuine joy to hiding how we really feel. And that's before I am even thinking of facebook and instagram .....

What made you decide to contact a counsellor? Looking for help with a specific problem? Or  just a  sense of something 'not feeling right' ? A relationship not working? Private or work-related (or both) stress? A tragic loss? Feeling angry, sad, anxious,  overwhelmed? Or feeling lower than usual and simply concerned about your mental health - and not quite sure how best to deal with it, other than hoping it will change soon?

I have helped people address problems and make changes in their lives for the many years, initially through coaching and individual development with professionals in large and small organisations, and in the last few years also as a counsellor with private clients.

And  I still feel the same sense of awe when the "status update" (see above) slowly emerges on a client's face (or showing in their posture, tone of voice, breathing): Something has shifted and changed for the better. And at times, neither of us know exactly how that happened, but we both know it would not have happened if we had not started and continued talking...

My default therapeutic framework is psychosynthesis (** see below), but I happily borrow concepts and models from cognitive, behavioural and emotion focused therapies and integrate them with ideas from coaching, short-term therapy,  learning and positive psychology. For me, there is not single right way. What's important is that it works for you.

When you decide to "hire" me, I aim for four things:

(o) (If necessary) Help you clarify what you want and realistically can achieve through counselling.

(i) To create the space for you to talk, and for me to listen closely to what you want to say (or don't), in order to really understand what concerns you and how it impacts you (and others?).

(ii) To get to know you and the different aspects of your personality, the events that have shaped you, and how they may relate to your concerns.

(iii) To help you gain insights, skills and tools, to give you new options for dealing with your concerns and problems and make the changes you want in your life. That will at times involve challenging how you think or what you do.

iv) To discover with you what new (or old?) thoughts, feelings, images and sensations may be emerging from your current situation, and in what direction you may want to take them.

(** Psychosynthesis is a therapeutic 'orientation' founded by Roberto Assagioli, who, like many others, studied psychoanalysis with Freud, disagreed with some of it and came up with his own philosophy and approach for therapy, combining Freud's insights with ideas from many other sources. I very much like and subscribe to the idea of "synthesis" -  the combination of parts, to form a connected whole - the exact opposite of analysis).

Ideally, I want to see you for at least two sessions (If you book this as a package, I offer the first 2 sessions for £90). During these sessions we explore, structured and in quite some detail, the reason(s) for you coming to counselling, what is currently going on in your life, and the major events you have experienced so far. At the end, we will discuss options for further work and making changes in your life. Then you can decide whether you want to continue working with me.

Alternatively, we can arrange a single, solution-focussed session, with a clearly defined purpose. You will need to do some pre-work to make that session effective.  Afterwards, you can decide to have further single sessions.

Or, we can just start talking ...