Ben Crawshaw

I currently have some online availability. Please enquire about times and whether I can offer you a session time that is convenient for you.

I have worked in private practice in London for 10 years. Following my initial five year training as an adult psychotherapist at Regents University, School of Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology, I have gone on to study early child and adolescent development in depth and am currently undertaking a doctoral training in child and adolescent psychotherapy.

I worked as part of a complex needs Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), covering four London boroughs and continue to work as part of a specialist multidisciplinary CAMHS team in London. I've been employed in several NHS psychotherapy departments, in primary care and in charitable organisations.

I have been a mindfulness practitioner for over 10 years and have explored embodiment in a variety of ways. My work is informed by an awareness of what our bodies tell us about our experience.

Prior to my professional training I studied music.

I work with people across the life-span and from all walks of life. You may have a specific issue/s that you wish to address. Sometimes the problem can be more difficult to pin down. It may feel like there are difficulties that overlap and are harder to untangle. I work with people who are having problems with their relationships, with friends and family, with study or working life, with depression, anxiety, issues related to self-esteem, identity and sexuality and those experiencing the aftermath of neglect, abuse or trauma.

Psychoanalytic work has a long history of addressing relational difficulties in careful detail, and is my usual approach. I am happy to be contacted by people seeking short term support focused on specific issues, as well as longer-term therapy when desired changes have been harder to achieve.

The therapeutic setting offers a safe and confidential space where you can explore what is troubling you without fear of criticism or judgment. Central to my work is you as an individual, your own experience and the ways in which you understand what's been happening.

Through engaging in a collaborative process that helps us to think about our challenges, therapy can allow us to open up possibility, even in areas of our lives that feel stuck. It can be an opportunity to begin facing up to parts of our lives and ourselves that have previously felt too painful to think about and understand. 

I am interested in how the experiences of our childhood and our families influence our development and later lives. We may repeat early patterns of relating, and of protecting ourselves, even when they are no longer helpful and may even unknowingly maintain our current problems. Through understanding these patterns and how they’re limiting us, it’s possible to begin making choices that can help us lead a more fulfilling life.