Gary Keene

I work Mondays and Tuesdays, from 7am to 7pm.

I work with adults, one to one. I offer face to face and online counselling, walk and talk therapy, and a therapeutic coaching strand for people carrying responsibility at work.

I don't work from a single method. My training is in pluralistic person-centred counselling, with earlier training in Gestalt; the practical effect is that I don't arrive with a technique to apply to you.

Pluralistic is a clumsy word for a simple idea: no one approach suits everyone, so what we do gets worked out between us and revisited as we go, rather than settled before we've met. It makes the direction yours more often than mine.

Mostly we talk, and I listen closely. I'll try to understand things as you see them rather than fit them to a theory, and I'll say what I'm noticing when it seems useful. Sometimes we sit with something difficult rather than rush past it. I've come to trust silence more than I used to, though if a pause is uncomfortable, do say, and we'll pick the thread back up.

Some of what people bring has its roots in things that were frightening or overwhelming at the time. I work in a trauma-informed way, which is less a technique than a set of habits: going at your pace rather than mine, checking rather than assuming, and treating your own sense of what's safe to look at as the reliable guide. Nothing has to be told before you want to tell it, and some things never need telling at all.

Some of the people I work with are autistic, or have ADHD, or both. Mostly they've said so early on, and mostly it has mattered less to what we talked about than to how we talked about it. I don't offer assessment or diagnosis, and I wouldn't describe myself as a specialist. What I try to do is not make you translate yourself into an hour that was built for somebody else. So I'd want to get some things right early: what pace suits you, how much I should say out loud rather than leave implied, whether silence helps or hinders, and what words you use about yourself. I'd rather ask than assume.

I work with adults, one to one. I offer counselling, and separately a therapeutic coaching strand for people carrying responsibility at work.

People come with all sorts of things. Often it's grief, or anxiety, or an ending that hasn't been recognised as one. Sometimes it's depression, which has a way of arriving in the middle of everything else and getting put down to circumstance. Sometimes it's the tiredness that comes of being the person everyone else relies on, or a running commentary about yourself that you'd never use about anyone else. Sometimes several things have arrived at once, none of them getting proper attention because the next one is already here. You don't need a diagnosis, or a plan, or the right words. Those tend to arrive in the talking rather than before it.

Sessions are 50 minutes, usually weekly, for as long or short a time as is useful. Some people come for a few weeks with something specific. Others stay longer, and find that what they came with turns out not to be the whole of it. You're free to stop whenever you want to.

I see people in Kingston upon Thames, online across the UK over an end-to-end encrypted link, and on foot in Richmond Park for those it suits. I work Mondays and Tuesdays, 7am to 7pm, which leaves room for sessions before or after the working day.

Fees are £70 for a 50-minute session, with concessionary places sometimes available. Coaching is quoted individually.

The first step is a free conversation of about twenty minutes, by phone or online. There's nothing to prepare and no need to explain everything then. Nothing is booked or paid for until after it. It's a chance to ask me anything, and for both of us to get a sense of whether this feels workable.

If I'm not the right person, or if what you need is something else, I'll say so and help you find a better fit. Whatever brought you here, there's no need to have it all clear before you get in touch.

Before any regular sessions, I offer a free conversation of about twenty minutes, by phone or online. There's no charge for it and nothing is booked or paid for until afterwards.

It isn't an assessment and there's no form to fill in beforehand. It's a chance to say a little about what's brought you, to ask me anything you want to ask, and for both of us to get a sense of whether this feels workable. Plenty of people use it to ask practical things: how I work, what happens to what they tell me, whether the times fit. Some people know within five minutes. Others want to go away and think, which is fine, and I won't chase you.

If we decide to go ahead, the first full session is charged at the usual rate of £70. There's no separate assessment fee and no reduced rate, because the first session is a session rather than a screening.

In it we'll settle the practical ground: times, fees, cancellations, and the limits of confidentiality, which I'd rather say out loud than leave in small print. I'll ask for a mobile number, an emergency contact and your GP's details. That last part can feel a bit formal for a first meeting. It's there so that in the rare situation where I couldn't reach you, or where there was a serious risk to your safety, I'd know what to do.

Then we talk. You don't have to start at the beginning, or have it in any order, or explain everything at once. Most people find the first session slightly awkward and that's normal rather than a sign it won't work.

Nothing commits you to a number of sessions. If after the first one you'd rather not continue, or you'd rather see someone else, you can say so and I'll help you find a better fit if that would be useful.