Lee McCallum

I meet with clients face to face and online, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, later on Mondays and Thursday.  

I'm compassionate, direct and grounded in reality. I’m not a therapist who will simply agree with everything you say, nor do I believe the purpose of therapy is to make difficult feelings disappear. Sometimes life is painful, uncertain and unfair. Therapy can help us face that reality without being overwhelmed by it.

There is value in understanding why we think, feel and behave as we do, but insight alone isn’t enough. At some point, you have to change. That might mean confronting something you’ve avoided, questioning a belief you’ve held for years, accepting something you can't change, or taking responsibility for things you can.

The same is true in couples therapy. My role isn’t to decide who is right or wrong. I’m interested in what happens between you: the patterns you find yourselves repeating, and what has become difficult to say or hear. Change in a relationship requires both people to look honestly at their own part in it, rather than focusing on what the other one needs to do differently.

I don’t believe in forced positivity. I’m interested in what is true, what matters, and what might help. I'll understand your experience, but I'll also challenge you when it could be useful. You are free to disagree with me, instead of telling me what you think I want to hear.

What frightens or unsettles us reveals strengths we didn’t know we had. Camus wrote, “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer.” That doesn't mean everything happens for a reason, or that suffering is good for us. Sometimes life is difficult, and difficult periods show us what we’re really capable of.

Ultimately, I want our work to lead somewhere. There may be things you need to change, things you need to confront, and things you simply need to accept. Whether I’m working with you individually or as a couple, my role isn’t to tell you how to live, but to help you understand what is happening more clearly and make choices you can stand behind.

I offer an initial consultation before we begin regular sessions. This gives us an opportunity to talk about what has brought you to therapy, what you would like help with, and what you hope might be different. It also gives us both a chance to decide whether working together feels like the right fit.

Sessions will be shaped around you rather than a fixed programme or single therapeutic model. I’m trained across several approaches, including person-centred, psychodynamic, existential, CBT and DBT, and I draw on these differently depending on the person I’m working with.

Our work may involve looking at the past and understanding how earlier experiences continue to influence the present. The focus may be more on what is happening now: patterns of thinking or behaviour, relationships, emotions, decisions, or changes you want to make. Often its a combination of these.

I also work with couples. Here, the focus is on the relationship rather than either person being seen as the problem. We'll look at patterns of communication and conflict, how each of you responds to the other, where you become stuck, and what sits underneath the difficulties between you. Couples therapy isn’t about who is right, but helping you understand what is happening and what needs to change.

Whether I’m working with an individual or a couple, you can expect a balance of support and challenge. There will be times when I listen and give you room to work something through, and times when I offer another perspective, notice a contradiction or challenge something. I don’t follow a formula, and I won’t assume that what works for one person will work for another.

Alongside private practice, I have worked across NHS CAMHS, adult forensic services, probation services, schools and colleges. This has given me experience of working with people from very different backgrounds and circumstances.

We can regularly review how the therapy is going, what is changing, what isn’t, and whether our work remains focused. 

The first session is a free, 30-minute online consultation. It gives us an opportunity to get to know each other a little and decide whether we feel we could work well together.

I’ll ask about what has brought you to therapy, your current situation and what you hope to get from our work. I’ll also explain how I work, what the therapeutic process might look like, and some of the practical aspects of starting therapy.

There will be plenty of opportunity for you to ask questions too. There’s no obligation to continue afterwards; the purpose of the consultation is simply for us both to decide whether working together feels like the right fit.