Michael Boyce

Current Working Hours

My dedicated private practice time is:

Mondays: 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM (UK Time)

All sessions are conducted online via Google Meet.

Future Time Off / Out of Office

Any planned periods of unavailability (e.g., holidays, training) will be communicated to existing clients with at least four weeks' notice.

If you are interested in starting therapy, please book a free initial consultation via my website to discuss 'good fit' and secure one of the available Monday slots.

Most people come to see me because the old way they have of managing things no longer works. Job stress piles up, that new promotion doesn't make you feel any better or taking the step to do something new feels overwhelming. It could be that you are the one who's changed, but bringing the new you into the wider world and your relationships is terrifying. 

It makes you question if what you feel is right, or that you are being silly. You're not. Change and growth are both scary things to do, and they make us want to retreat back to our comfort zone even if we know that hurts us. 

Finding a therapist is hard. You've likely got a ChatGPT conversation a mile long, have asked Google 'how to choose a therapist' 100 times and scrolled through an endless list of therapist who promise 'safety', 'warmth' and 'calm'.

Good therapy is all those things, but a lot of the time it's hard and uncomfortable. You're confronting real challenges in your life and change isn't easy. It's my job to help you look at the challenges and bring you back to stable enough ground so you can go back out and live the other 99% of your week.

The basics of my approach to therapy are quite simple. We will either be 1) talking about how you see your experiences and challenges; 2) looking at other ways to think about them and see if anything is connected; or 3) testing out ways of changing things, either practically or even just how you think about something. 

I'm what is called an integrative therapist, meaning I'm trained to apply different approaches help move through stages 1, 2 and 3 above. I don't set homework, although from time to time will encourage you to try out things between sessions. I work both short and long term, although pretty much all of my clients to date have worked with me for at least 6 months.

I bring nearly two decades experience to therapy,having worked with people across the corporate world, as a mortgage advisor and most substantially as a Social Worker and Team Manager.

Much of my experience involves helping people manage change. You might have already taken a big step - like a promotion or finally embracing a part of yourself you’ve kept hidden - or maybe change is happening to you and you’re struggling to keep up. These moments can leave you feeling alone and powerless, and that is exactly what I help you figure out.

Something unique about my practice is that I offer a space to talk specifically about your relationship with money. This includes the fears and behaviors that cause you stress, like the anxiety of opening bills or feeling pressure to match your income to your lifestyle as your wages increase. We rarely get the chance to be honest about money anywhere else, and I want to change that.

When you first get in touch, we’ll arrange a short video or phone call to see how we get on. The relationship between us is the most important part of this working; it doesn't matter how I work if you don't feel comfortable with me. If we’re both happy to go ahead, we’ll sign a simple agreement that covers the basics like fees and how we handle holidays or cancellations.

I ask for an initial commitment of six sessions. Starting therapy can feel awkward or uncomfortable at first, and six weeks is usually enough time to move past that and start seeing real progress.

In our sessions, I’m an active participant, but you’ll be the one doing most of the talking - it’s your life, and I can’t do that part for you. You won’t get any pressure from me; you can’t move too slowly and you can’t do therapy 'wrong.' I’ll step in with questions to help you look at things more deeply and share observations about what I’m hearing. The goal is for you to finish our time together with more clarity than when you started.

In the past clients have appreciated that I'm honest and I try to be transparent when I'm thinking about something. Therapy should be a conversation, not an interview. You'll have my undivided attention and anything you have to say will be respected

Our first session is a chance to start exploring what brings you here and what you want to feel different by the end of our time together. These early sessions are about giving you as much space as possible to say what feels important. I will ask questions to help you explain your thoughts, but I am unlikely to offer "solutions" in the first hour or two.

I know you will probably want something to do right away. Talking about uncomfortable things builds up an anxious energy that needs to go somewhere, and it’s natural to put pressure on us both to come up with answers there and then. But it’s worth remembering that you have likely been living with these feelings for a long time. You’ve agonized over them and thought about them every which way without finding a clear path forward.

One or two sessions, even with a very good therapist, won't make things go away overnight. If you - with all your strengths, resources, and creativity - haven’t been able to "fix" it yet, I’m not going to do you a disservice by pretending I can step in and change everything instantly. What I will do is bring my whole human self into our sessions, and together we will find a way forward that actually works for you.

If you want to work on something very practical - like changing a specific habit - we can agree in the first session to focus solely on that for six weeks. This is a different way of working where I can provide more of a structured plan.

I don’t ask you to fill out any long assessment forms or tick-box exercises before we meet. The first session is charged at my standard rate of £75.