Ben Amponsah

My working day will be Mondays (10:00 to 18:00) and Fridays (10:00 to 15:00). My availability is severely limited however as I have a full schedule.

I'm a friendly and experienced HCPC Registered Counselling Psychologist and BACP-accredited psychotherapist, with 24 years in practice and counting. Most of my work these days is with trauma.

I've been interested in what makes people tick since I was very young, which is why I chose Psychology for my first degree. The route here wasn't a straight line — there was a stint as an Army Officer and then as a Recruitment Consultant before I found my way back to counselling and psychology through an Employee Assistance (workplace counselling) organisation. I worked in that world for over 13 years before branching out into private practice, having gained my counselling qualifications some years earlier.

For trauma I rely heavily on EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) — I'm an accredited EMDR Europe practitioner and a Consultant in Training. It's a particularly effective, NICE-recommended therapy for PTSD, complex PTSD and trauma. My specialist experience includes survivors of torture and serious trauma, military veterans, male survivors of sexual harm, and clients from the LGBT and Human Rights communities, alongside a good deal of workplace counselling. I've also worked with young people and with groups.

Whatever you bring, I aim to be collaborative and supportive — working with you to find the approach that genuinely helps, with the right amount of challenge where it's useful.

I work mainly online and by telephone, and can also see clients in person by arrangement. I'm always happy to start with a short, free initial consultation, so we can see whether we're a good fit and take things from there.

I'm a pluralistic therapist, which means I work with each client to find the best therapeutic approach for the issues they bring. I mainly use Cooper and McLeod's pluralistic framework, with a humanistic base and a strong influence from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Psychodynamic and Solution-Focused approaches. My style is collaborative, encouraging, coaching and supportive, with the right amount of challenge where it's needed.

I'm experienced in assisting clients across a wide range of areas, including: Trauma, Post-traumatic stress and PTSD, complex PTSD, sexual abuse and sexual harm, Service Veterans, Anxiety and generalised anxiety, Depression, Bereavement and Loss, Identity and Sexuality, Sexual identity, Men's Issues, Self-Esteem, Self-Harm, Obsessions, Relationships, Stress and Work-related issues, Redundancy, Cultural issues, AIDS/HIV, General counselling, Personal Development and Life Coaching.

I generally work with outcome measures to assess psychological state at the first and last sessions. We usually use Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE), but can also use other measures depending on what I'm supporting you with — for example, trauma-specific measures for PTSD.

In the first session we will be mainly running through our therapy contract together, which sets out how we will work together. On top of that I will ask you to fill in an outcome measure questionnaire that gives us a feel for where you are psychologically in that 1st session. We then repeat it at the end of therapy to see what movement you have made. I will also request some basic demographics and your GP details in that 1st session. The rest of the session will be you outlining your background and what has brought you to therapy.

I currently have no availability 

I have been training since my army days in the 90s and use my Instructor skills and clinical qualifications to provide training across the following areas:

Stress Trg for Managers – can be 1 day, half a day or 1 hour

Stress Trg for employees – 1 hour

Workplace stress and workplace performance – 1 hour

Health and Wellbeing for managers – 1 hour (could be longer 2.5 hours)

Clean and Healthy Living – 1 hour

Smoking Cessation – 1 Hour

How to use your EAP to best support staff/managers around Critical Incidents -1 hour

How to use your EAP to support your managers (Management Support) – 1hour

How to deal with Mental Health issues in the workplace – 1 hour

Employee wellbeing – 1 hour

Worklife balance – 1 hour

Generally speaking I can put together new presentations around these sorts of areas if required and it falls within my remit as a psychological therapist who has worked in business-if in doubt just ask!

My trainings are very interactive and energetic with a very high level of satisfaction and buy in from the trainees who cite my personal experience as a therapist and the anecdotes that I can therefore bring to bear as key factors in what have been described as 'inspirational' trainings.