Kristina Burvill-Ridler

Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, Friday (daytime only) 

My name is Kristina and I am a fully qualified Humanistic Psychotherapeutic Counsellor and Relational Psychotherapist using an integrated approach. I have an MSc in Psychotherapy and I am a registered member of the BACP.  My work is predominantly influenced by body-oriented psychotherapy, the philosophy of existentialism and mindfulness.

As well as running a private psychotherapy practice for 10 years, I have 15 years experience of working within the voluntary sector for various charities and organisations. Offering support to those experiencing; bereavement, caring duties, addiction, victims of crime, abuse and trauma, physical and mental illness including; depression, anxiety, digestive disorders and chronic pain.

Before training as a psychotherapist I worked in prisons, youth offending teams, and the probation service, as a fully qualified substance misuse and recovery support worker. These roles included, advocacy, supporting victims of crime and survivors of abuse, trauma informed psychosocial 1-1 interventions and group work facilitiating. 

I also worked within the community and local government as a psychosocial family and parent practitioner; providing families and children with therapeutic support, and implementing equality policy in schools for the young carers centre.

I understand how extremely difficult, painful and stressful life can be and it can be a hard job to try and manage things on our own. I appreciate that living with daily pressures can mean we can feel lost and lose direction of what we want from life. You may be seeking counselling to talk about the daily struggles in your life, or to gain support with a specific issue such as bereavement or relationship issues. Whatever your reason, I believe that sharing your emotions and feelings freely within an empathic and therapeutic relationship can be incredibly healing.

My approach is based on working relationally, which means our work together will focus on establishing a safe and supportive thereputic relationship. The relationship between my clients and myself, is the key component to enable change and acceptance, so it's important that you feel comfortable and free to explore.  

I believe that our mind and body are intricately connected. What our mind experiences, so does our body, therefore I work in a way that invites clients to learn how to be in the moment with their bodies. The process of being intune with ones body can be extremely beneficial in learning to regulate emotions, manage symptoms of illness and chronic pain, understand grief and heal trauma.

Sessions are often based on exploring how past experiences and relationships influence your choices, values, beliefs and your relationship with yourself and others around you. It is often through the process of appropriate revisiting of past experiences and relationships within therapy that can gain a new level of self awareness and self acceptance, thus allowing us to live authentically in the present.

Sessions I can offer:

Psychotherapy sessions to individuals and couples.

Solution focused and CBT based therapy.

Life coaching sessions.

Mindfulness sessions.

Sessions are often weekly, for an agreed time and day.

I am a registered member of the BACP and UPCA and I receive regular supervision in order to support my practice and discuss my work. All sessions are confidential apart from issues relating to safety. I am committed to my CPD and regularly attend workshops, conferences and seminars.

If you have any questions, would like a chat about booking an initial session, feel free to give me a call or send me an e-mail.

I look forward to hearing from you.

I encourage the first session to be a space where you can have a relaxed chat with me with no obligation to continue. The first session is an opportunity for us to both to find out if we would work well together. I welcome you to ask me questions about my practice and experience and I hope to find out more about your past experiences of therapy and what you aim to gain from the therapy journey.