Andrea Gavin

Within my practice I see private clients, trainee therapists and supervisees. 

I work from a private and confidential space online.

My practice hours are: 

• Email counselling:   agreed response time of 48 hours
• Telephone/video counselling:  Tuesday/Thursdays, Sunday
• Instant chat sessions:   Wednesday evening
• Clinical supervision:  Monday evenings 

Please note that availability can fluctuate so feel free to message me to confirm and discuss your particular needs. 

A warm welcome, 

My name is Andrea.  I am a counsellor, psychotherapist and clinical supervisor.   

I have worked in wellbeing, mental health and higher education for many years and also work for health insurers.    Much of my work has focused on supporting people to become happier, more resilient and to have improved connection  to themselves and others.  

I have a particular interest in: 

• Emotional regulation:  noticing, labelling and expressing 
• Connection, disconnection and misconnection in relationship 
  
• Power, control, choice and potential 
• Parenting and neurodiversity. 
  

I have made the decision to keep my private practice small so this remains  personalised and built on care, compassion and collaboration in relationship.  

Naturally,  the therapist I have become is informed by who I am as a person.  I am white,  female and  in my 50's.  I come from a large family and was raised in Portugal and England which are both important to me.   Within my family there is neurodiversity.   Over the years, I have experienced a range of life adjustments to include loss as well as separation in relationship. 

 In recent years, I have discovered a love of running. 

I believe starting well is important. 

If you decide to work with me, I would invite you to tell me about yourself  through a new client form.  This ensures that I am best placed to support you or  would enable me to guide you to more suitable support. 

If we do feel there is a fit - we would arrange an initial appointment to discuss  your needs, wants, fears and what type of therapy you would like.   This might be counselling, psychotherapy or therapy using the arts.  We would also decide on how this is delivered - video, telephone, text or email. Naturally, we agree timings, duration and fees also.

As we build our therapeutic relationship,  and if you feel it is safe to do so,  we can delve deeper into areas that you may wish to explore.   Some examples of these might be: 

• emotional and psychological wellbeing (how we do feelings, self-esteem)
• personal development (changes, hopes, fears)
• mood (anger, sadness, feeling stuck, low motivation or drive)
• Balance and stress (anxiety, worry, loss motivation, panic, perfectionism)
• Loss and life changes (bereavement, complicated grief, life transitions)
• Conflict (divorce, domestic violence, childbirth)

Where appropriate, I might offer guidance, a strategy or offer my therapeutic perspective.   Not unlike your car's MOT or your home's spring clean - therapy enables us to sort through, order and dispose of tired, unused or unhelpful things.  This creates space for new things.   Naturally, there will be opportunity to check in with each other to ensure that therapy is helpful but also to identify if there are areas that are not working for you.  We can then agree on changes that may be need.  You can choose to end at any time.

Within my private practice, I do not offer a crisis service and recommend that you contact your GP or local health provider and/or Samaritans, Befrienders International in such instances.

In terms of training and regulation, I am accredited and registered with BACP and a member of the Association for Counselling and Therapy Online.

I welcome enquiries (via my webpage) and aim to respond to these within 48 hours. Please do let me know how you would like me to respond  - sometimes it can help if you share your availability. 

Alternatively, you may wish to check my webpage for availability and book in directly.  I will send you a link to a new client form online where you can provide information that you feel would be important for me to know prior to our session. 

I appreciate that it can be very useful to have a brief initial session.

Please feel free to message me if you have any questions.