Therapy in Brighton & Hove and Online
About me
Hello, I’m Duncan. I’m an integrative therapist and accredited coach, based out of beautiful therapy rooms in central Hove (BN3) and a member of the Brighton and Hove Therapy Hub. I’m glad you’re here, exploring avenues to support your mental and emotional wellbeing.
I create a non-judgemental space of warmth, empathy and gentle challenge for you to process whatever it is you’re struggling with. It may be something specific, or it could be that something just doesn’t feel quite right.
As an integrative therapist, I draw on a range of psychotherapeutic theories to support you moment-by-moment. I will flex with you and your evolving needs as we work together.
Whatever it is that you're facing, I am here to be alongside you for as many sessions as you need as we make sense of your world together. I look forward to going on this journey with you.
My Approach
Therapy is never a perfectly linear experience, but I have in mind these four key phases when working with my clients.
Phase 1: Stabilise
This is about making things feel a little more bearable right now. It may involve us using mindfulness and the breath to help you get more grounded, and doing some coaching around the practices you already know to have helped you in the past. Or it may involve me sharing some tools and techniques that can help you to cope. Together, we’ll identify experiences and practices that build your emotional strength, resilience and wellbeing both inside and outside of the room.
Phase 2: Process
This is about going back into your story, and helping you to make sense of what’s happened, allowing whatever needs to be explored to bubble to the surface organically, and often feeling the feelings that perhaps you never felt. Sometimes, I may invite you to bring particular attention to physical sensations in your body; these feelings (like a fluttering in your chest or tension in your jaw) can often offer us a clue as to what may need our therapeutic attention. And, if you’re feeling particularly stuck, I might invite you to experiment with a different way of being in the room: to say something in a way you never have, or exaggerate a gesture you’re already making. This can be difficult work, but it can also be transformational, liberating and life-enhancing.
Phase 3: Integrate
This is about beginning to make connections between what has happened in your past and how it impacts your present-day experience (including your emotions and your relationships). The aim, here, is to find some peace with who you are today.
Phase 4: Change
Having been coaching since 2012, I’m interested in your future, and in change – we’re able to go further than traditional therapy, and look at what you want to be different as a result of everything you will have learned and experienced through our work together. I can use coaching to support you to make the changes you want to make.
These first three phases are inspired by Pierre Janet’s pioneering work at the turn of the 20th century.
“Duncan has been my therapist for two years, helping me to navigate a traumatic time. I was new to therapy at the start and found it all awkward and uncomfortable, as well as struggling to cope with more extreme emotions than I had navigated before.
In our early sessions Duncan helped me to recognise where those feelings were coming from, and gave me the space to approach them more honestly than I’d managed before. I particularly valued his focus on helping me connect with my emotions physically, including exploring how I felt sadness in my body, and using breath work to help me regulate myself.
He listened carefully and was able to understand - and help me understand - not only what I was saying, but also what I was struggling to express. I have never had to remind Duncan of anything – he has listened carefully, remembered everything and held it all safely for me, taking everything I have brought seriously even when I have tried to diminish it myself.
Duncan is clearly knowledgeable and has grounded himself thoroughly in the therapeutic method he follows. But more than this I valued the fact that he was willing to walk alongside me and share in my difficult time with kindness and thoughtfulness.”
– Alice
Frequently Asked Questions
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My clients come to me when facing a range of different challenges.
Some are feeling particularly overwhelmed, angry, anxious or depressed right now – they want to find ways to cope more effectively in their day-to-day, and process what’s causing their difficult feelings.
Others are trying to come to terms with painful events that they have experienced: bereavement or relationship breakdown, trauma, loss or abuse.
Our work together is often about trying to integrate all that has happened, and find our way to a place of greater balance and wellbeing.
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As an integrative therapist, I draw on a range of psychotherapeutic theories to support you moment-by-moment. I will flex with you and your evolving needs as we work together.
You’ll find elements of the below approaches in much of my work:
Attachment-based therapy;
Coaching;
Existential therapy;
Gestalt therapy;
Humanistic therapy;
Mindfulness;
Person-centred therapy;
Psychodynamic therapy;
Relational therapy;
Somatic therapy.
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I have a Post-Graduate Diploma in Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy from Europe’s leading integrative psychotherapy institute – The Minster Centre in London.
Training includes:
Contemporary Theories of Psychotherapy;
Humanistic and Existential Models of Psychotherapy;
Object Relations and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy;
Somatic and Body Psychotherapy;
Intersectionality in Psychotherapy;
Family and Belonging;
Self-Harm and Suicide;
Gender, Sexual and Relationship Diversity;
Race and Racism in the Here and Now;
Childhood Sexual Abuse;
Time Limited Therapy;
Skills for Trauma;
Severe Presentations, Psychiatric Assessment and Use of Medications;
Death and Bereavement;
Domestic Abuse;
Eco-Anxiety and Environmental Trauma.
I also trained at some of the leading coaching schools in the world (the Co-Active Training Institute and International Coach Academy) and am a Certified Professional Coach. I am accredited by the International Coaching Federation.
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Sessions are from £80, with a small number of reduced-rate spaces available. If a lower fee would make therapy accessible for you, you’re welcome to ask. All sessions are 50 minutes in length.
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My in-person practice is based at:
Murmuration Therapy Rooms
75 Church Road
Hove
BN3 2BBI also work online with clients from across the UK.
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The first step is to set up a short initial phone call – this is a zero-obligation opportunity for you to ask any questions, to share what brings you to therapy, and to see if working together feels right for you. You can book this call here.