Helen Hayes

My working hours are:-

Mon 1pm-8pm, in-person 

Thurs 3pm-8pm, in-person 

Please see my website for details of current availability. 

People often turn to counselling or psychotherapy when they feel stuck in life, confused or distressed. Whether you feel overwhelmed by the demands of your present life, troubled by painful past experiences, or unsure of your future direction, it is often helpful to talk through your concerns in confidence with someone outside your usual circle of friends or family.

I am a BACP Registered and Senior Accredited Counsellor and UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, based in central London . I have experience of working with people with a wide range of difficulties, including depression, anxiety, relationship problems, sexual issues, abuse, bereavement & loss, low self-esteem, eating problems, work problems, stress, trauma. 

I aim to offer you a supportive and non-judgemental relationship in which you can explore whatever is troubling you in life, express your feelings and thoughts, and come to a clearer understanding of yourself.

Therapy is concerned with exploring and clarifying your choices, values, or meanings, and addressing how you deal with the inevitable challenges of life. It aims to help you understand yourself, how you might repeat patterns of behaviour or relationship which are limiting or destructive, and how you might make different choices for yourself in the future. 

I describe my approach to therapy as existential, integrative, relational, and trauma-informed. Those words might not mean much to you, so I will try to explain a bit what that means.

My training as an existential psychotherapist means that I draw on philosophy as well as psychology to inform how I understand the sorts of concerns that might lead someone to seek therapy.

There are some life experiences that we all have to face and that we might feel anxious about: making life decisions about relationships or work, relating to others, facing illness, ageing and loss. The particular ways in which we encounter these experiences are unique to each individual. We are never isolated individuals, but always living in the context of our personal relationships, our social and cultural environments, and our own values and aspirations. We often hold ourselves back from living fully, or find ourselves in difficulties in our close relationships, or struggle to find a sense of purpose in our lives. Therapy can help in unravelling some of the knots that we have tied for ourselves.

My integrative approach means that I also draw on knowledge about the ways in which earlier life experiences might influence how we feel about ourselves today and how we approach the challenges we are facing. Sometimes the origins of our difficulties lie in childhood and family experiences which have affected us as adults; therapy can be helpful in enabling us to understand these influences and to overcome the ways in which they might limit us. My initial training was in Gestalt counselling, which shares many of these ideas and includes creative ways of exploring them in therapy.

By a relational approach, I mean that I aim to offer a therapeutic relationship which is warm, supportive, and engaged. 

A trauma-informed approach means that I have a good understanding of the ways in which traumatic experiences can affect people, and how to explore that safely in therapy. 

If you think you might be interested, the first step is to contact me, preferably  by email. This is a chance for you to tell me something about yourself and ask me any questions you might have.

The next step is for us to make an appointment for an initial consultation, when we will discuss your concerns and explore whether we would like to work together. If we decide to go ahead, I will offer you an initial six sessions. This means that we will meet at the same time each week for six consecutive weeks. At the end of that time, we review those sessions and decide whether to continue.

All sessions last for 50 minutes.

At our initial meeting, I will invite you to tell me about yourself, what has led you to seek counselling/psychotherapy, and what you are hoping to gain from it. I might ask you some more specific questions as we go along, to try to get an understanding of your experiences. This is also an opportunity for you to ask me any questions you might have.

In subsequent sessions, it will be for you to decide where you would like to start. This might feel rather awkward to you at first, but as we get to know each other, the sessions develop into free-flowing conversations where we explore whatever is important to you. My role is to listen to you and pay close attention to how you understand yourself and your life. I might ask you questions to clarify some matters, or sometimes to challenge how you think about things. But I won’t be giving you advice or telling you how to live your life. I don’t generally give ‘homework’ to clients or instructions on what to bring from one session to the next. 

My usual working hours for supervision are:-

Tues 10am-1pm, 4pm-5pm, online only

Wed 9am-11am, online only

Please check my website or email me for current availability

I offer supervision online only. 

My supervision practice is integrative and existential.  I am able to supervise practitioners in a range of theoretical modalities.  I have extensive experience of both individual and group supervision in a range of settings and levels of experience. 

I have experience of supervising counsellors, social work students, and volunteers in the voluntary sector and in primary care.

As well as my private practice, I currently supervise counsellors at  Ealing Abbey Counselling Service, at Bereft Bereavement Support in Ealing, at the Claremont Centre in Islington, and at Kingston Women's Centre. I previously supervised counsellors at the West London Centre for Counselling for five years.

I have also supervised trainee existential psychotherapists at the New School of Psychotherapy & Counselling.

I have a Diploma in Integrative Supervision and have BACP Senior Accreditation as a supervisor of groups.