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Helping you feel calmer, sleep better and build healthier relationships.
I'm an experienced therapist specialising in anxiety and burnout counselling for adults and relationship counselling for couples.
I offer effective therapy for generalised and social anxiety, low self-esteem, acute or accumulative trauma, insomnia (CBT-I) and burnout. I will support you with effective strategies to manage and alleviate your symptoms, whist we work together towards discovering and attending to the underlying difficulties. My therapeutic approach is customised to your individual needs and includes a special focus on relational and existential psychology.
When working with couples I can help with conflict de-escalation, improved communication, meaningful repair of rifts or betrayals and with rebuilding the trust and emotional connection which is essential for healthy, satisfying and loving relationships.
I can provide a face-to-face counselling service from my private and comfortable therapy room in Chislehurst, near Bromley in Kent and also UK-wide online via video call. I have been a therapist since the start of 2017 and I am a registered member of the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP), which means that I adhere to their high standards of proficiency, professionalism and good practice.
Please read on for more detailed information on how I can help you with anxiety, burnout, trauma and PTSD, CBT-I for insomnia and more on my couples counselling service.
Persistent anxiety can be uncomfortable and sometimes debilitating, but it doesn't have to be a permanent feature or label that becomes part of your identity. Anxiety is in fact our naturally evolved internal warning system alerting us that something is wrong and preparing us to attend to the problem.
The anxiety counselling I offer will help alleviate the symptoms with techniques to soothe and regulate your nervous system, whilst we also explore the origins of any difficulties and discover more about your responses to life events and beliefs about yourself and other people for example. You'll have the opportunity to challenge and update your perceptions and discover strengths and perhaps choices you did not know you had.
The process may involve considering influences such as societal, cultural or family expectations of you based on your gender, race, sexuality or religion. Or your exposure to stressors during your life and how this has shaped your own perceptions and expectations. It's through this exploration that you can get to know yourself better and start to experience self-compassion, acceptance and belonging. Or grieve and heal from a devastating loss. You'll feel more grounded, whole and empowered.
Burnout is characterised by exhaustion, dysregulated emotions, low mood, decreased motivation and loss of ambition. You may also experience increased cynicism and compassion fatigue. It can lead to anxiety, depression, insomnia, chronic fatigue and vulnerability to addictions.
Professions with the highest rates of burnout include (but are not limited to) police officers, doctors, nurses, paramedics, teachers and professionals working in continually high-stress conditions. This is due to the excessive workloads, pressures and expectations from others, lack of control, micromanagement or lack of support, organisational instability, front-line practice, threats of complaints or violence and dysfunctional and toxic workplace cultures.
And although the symptoms of burnout often abate during breaks and time off, adjustments in boundaries (addressing people pleasing for example), increasing resilience and prioritising self-care are required to provide ongoing protection from burnout.
Counselling can help you make the necessary adjustments by highlighting the challenges and helping you refocus, address feelings of powerlessness and regain clarity about the value of your work. Together we can reinstate a sense of being in control and of meaning and purpose, providing you with a renewed psychological position from which to move forward.
Couples counselling offers you and your partner a safe and supported space to explore and address the difficulties that have arisen in your relationship. Together, we will identify and break the patterns of conflict you have become stuck in, while focusing on what each of you truly needs to feel loved and fulfilled.
Relationships falter when we do not feel valued, understood, or cared for. This often leads to resentment, disconnection, arguments, and the belief that you are incompatible or that things will never improve.
Whether you’re working through everyday challenges or recovering from betrayal, our work together in couples counselling can help you build the vital qualities of a thriving partnership, such as effective communication, physical and emotional intimacy, fun, and shared goals.
The type of relationship therapy I offer (Emotionally Focused Therapy, EFT) is evidence-based and rooted in adult attachment theory. While it can feel challenging, EFT goes beyond communication skills. It takes you deeper into the emotional experience of your relationship, helping to establish trust and emotional connection. This strengthens your bond, making it possible to address past hurts and create more meaningful, lasting change.
Persistent sleep difficulties such as struggling to fall asleep, waking frequently, or worrying about sleep, can take a toll on your mood, concentration, resilience, work, family and relationships. While general sleep advice can help in the short term, insomnia often involves learned patterns of thinking and behaviours that keep the cycle going.
What is CBT-I?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is the gold-standard, evidence-based treatment for chronic insomnia which is now recommended as the first-line treatment (ahead of medication) by organisations including NICE. It has been designed specifically to address the processes that maintain sleep problems and helps you rebuild confidence in your natural sleep system, reduce anxiety around sleep, and establish more predictable and restorative sleep patterns.
CBT-I is a structured, short-term approach (usually delivered in 4-6 sessions) combining practical strategies with psychological understanding. It works with:
Rather than focusing only on “sleep hygiene,” CBT-I helps you understand why insomnia persists and gives you tools to change the cycle. Read more about it in my blog "Why you can't sleep (and how to fix insomnia without medication)" .
It is completely normal to experience symptoms following painful and traumatic circumstances. These may include flashbacks, emotional fluctuations, numbness, tearfulness and feeling unsafe. However, if you are still having these symptoms months, or even years later, it is likely that they are getting in the way of your life and your work. There may be triggers that can take you back to the moment of the traumatic experience. Or perhaps you feel like it is always with you, stopping you from moving on, especially if the trauma was during childhood or within a relationship.
Trauma and PTSD can result from a single harrowing experience, something you have endured, seen or been deeply affected by. It can also be accumulative, perhaps from the nature of your work, an abusive relationship, illness of a loved one or childhood abuse or neglect. The latter especially can result in complex PTSD (C-PTSD), which can be particularly difficult to understand, as the trauma may not be consciously remembered, but still be experienced in the body or in your sense of self.
How we will agree to work together will depend on your needs and your choice. If it feels important to you, I will support you to safely talk about your experience. However, research has shown that it is not necessary to talk in detail about a traumatic event but rather the meaning that has been made from it, about yourself or other people for example.
I will also provide you with techniques to calm and soothe your dysregulated nervous system - which may have become either hypersensitised or even desensitised to real or perceived threat. You will find that you can finally begin the process of healing and moving forward.
Victoria Crowther Counselling