Marc Newton

I offer sessions from Monday to Friday during the following times:

- Mondays 10am-7pm

- Tuesdays 12pm-6pm

- Wednesdays 10am-9pm

- Thursdays 10am-3pm

- Fridays 12pm-7.30pm

Please contact me for my current availability. 

Face-to-face sessions are in my room at 68 Old Market Street, Bristol. Online sessions are offered via Zoom. 

I am an integrative relational therapist with a specialism in gender, sexuality and relationship diversity. 

'Integrative' means that I have a core training which includes a number of different therapeutic approaches. This means I can draw from different modalities, which can be helpful in adjusting my approach to your specific needs. My work is grounded in Person Centred and Psychodynamic counselling. 

Through my person-centred work, I aim to provide a safe space in which to explore feelings without judgement. 

In my psychodynamic work, I help to explore how past experiences might influence feelings in the present, and how this then affects current relationships. I help to explore unconscious processes, including psychological defences that have been built up in order to adapt and survive – acknowledging how these adaptations have been helpful and also how they might be having unintended consequences in the present, when perhaps the defences are no longer needed. Acceptance of these defences, patterns and emotions can then lead to greater insight, more self-compassion and, ultimately, more choice.

These different aspects of my work are underpinned by a focus on the counselling relationship, which I use as a lens through which we can explore other relationships in your life. The counselling relationship is different to other relationships in that it is not conditional – the relationship is here to meet your needs.

Working with gender, sexuality and sexual relationships covers a vast range of experiences and identities; as a gay man, I bring my lived experience into the work, without assuming that other LGBTQ+ experiences will be the same as mine. As part of my work, I help clients to deconstruct the negative impact of social norms and the resulting internalised oppression that can occur. I have experience in working with the trauma and shame which is often linked to our gender and sexual identities. My approach is affirmative, acknowledging strengths and fostering queer joy.

Face-to-face sessions are held in my room at 68 Old Market Street, Bristol. There is a small sofa for my clients to use, which is comfortable and spacious. The room is light and airy. the room at 68 Old Market Street is only accessible via one flight of stairs. There is a bike-stand and a car-park at the rear of the building; please contact me for further details. 

Online sessions are offered via Zoom. I send out new Zoom invitations for each session.

Sessions last between 50 and 55 minutes. 

Each session costs £55 per session, paid via bank transfer on the day of the session. This is the cost both of face-to-face sessions and online sessions. I do not currently offer concession rates.

I offer both short-term and long-term counselling. Some clients feel they only need around 6-8 sessions, and others continue for longer. I continually review this with clients.

I offer a free initial meeting, lasting 50-55 minutes. 

Taking the first step into counselling can feel difficult; understandably, people sometimes feel nervous about the first session. You're meeting a new person, in a new context, with the prospect of sharing personal, vulnerable things which you may not have told anyone before. Nerves are perfectly normal and we can work with that feeling. I am experienced in putting people at ease.

Our first session will be a chance for us to decide whether we could work together. It will be important for you to consider whether you feel comfortable talking to me. By coming to your initial meeting, you're not signing up for anything and you're not tied in to a certain number of sessions.

In the initial meeting, I won't ask you to go too deep or share anything too vulnerable. It will be a chance for me to gather some information from you, after which we can explore what's brought you to counselling. We will discuss what you would like to get from counselling, and start to think about how we might move forward. If you choose to have counselling with me, I will continue to review our work together as we go, so it doesn't all have to be decided in our first session.