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Anxiety
Anxiety counselling in Lewes and Brighton.
For the worry that has stopped being proportionate, the dread that arrives before anything has happened, and the tiredness of running a nervous system at full volume for months. Weekly sessions, in person or online.
In person in Brighton or Lewes, or online across the UK. £80 per 50 minutes, and the first fifteen-minute call is free.
- BACP accredited, member 374395
- Brighton, Lewes, or online UK-wide
- Weekly, 50 minutes, no minimum term
- A phone call first, not a form
What is anxiety counselling?
Regular one-to-one sessions with a counsellor, working on what the anxiety is doing and what sits underneath it. Most people come weekly for fifty minutes. The aim is not to remove anxiety, which is a normal and useful thing to feel, but to bring it back to a size that fits the situation you are actually in.
Anxiety is a common reason people look for counselling. It is also tiring to live with in a way that is easy to underestimate, because the effort of managing it is invisible to everyone else.
What anxiety actually feels like.
People often arrive apologising for not being anxious in the right way. There is no right way. These are the things clients describe most often, and you will not have all of them.
In the body.
A chest that will not settle. Shallow breathing you only notice when it stops. Nausea before ordinary events. Jaw and shoulders that have forgotten how to drop. Waking at four with the day already running.
In thinking.
Rehearsing conversations that have not happened. Rereading a sent message. Scanning a room for what might go wrong. A background process that never quite closes.
In what you do.
Saying yes to avoid the discomfort of saying no. Leaving early, or not going. Preparing far past the point of usefulness. Checking.
In how it looks from outside.
Often, completely fine. Many people who live with significant anxiety are described as calm and capable, which is its own particular loneliness.
Is it anxiety, or is it something that has been missed?
Worth reading before you book anything, including with me.
Often it is both. A great deal of what gets called anxiety in neurodivergent adults, whether or not anyone has named it, is the accumulated cost of masking rather than anxiety itself, and it responds to different things. If anxiety treatment has helped a little and never held, that is worth taking seriously rather than trying harder at the same thing.
A great deal of what gets called anxiety in neurodivergent adults, autistic and ADHD adults in particular, is not primarily anxiety. It is the accumulated cost of running a nervous system in an environment that does not fit, plus years of masking, plus the reasonable fear of being found out. It responds to different things. That holds whether you have had the diagnosis since school or are only now wondering.
If you have ever been told you are anxious and thought that is not quite it, or if anxiety treatment has helped a little and never held, that is worth taking seriously rather than trying harder at the same thing.
I work with both, and part of the first few sessions is often working out which conversation we are actually having. More about neurodivergent-affirming therapy, or what it looks like when nobody spotted it.
There is a third possibility worth naming. Anxiety that arrived after something specific, and has not shifted since, is often better approached as trauma than as anxiety, because the thing keeping it going is not the worry itself.
How does counselling for anxiety work?
By making the anxiety something you can look at rather than something you are inside. Sessions work on what triggers it, what it is protecting you from, and what keeps it going, and on building responses that do not cost more than they return.
Anxiety usually has a logic. It is doing a job, and it is often doing a job that made sense at some earlier point and has outlived it. Finding out what that job is tends to change more than any technique.
Practical work happens too. Noticing the early signals before the escalation. Working out which situations are genuinely worth the cost and which have been avoided so long that the avoidance is now the problem. Deciding what to say to the people around you.
None of it is homework, and none of it is graded. If a week goes badly we look at the week that went badly.
What we do not do.
I will not tell you to think positively, and I will not treat your anxiety as a faulty thought to be argued with. That is a real approach and it helps some people, but it is not the training I hold.
My training is a Postgraduate Diploma in Humanistic Psychotherapy, which means the work runs through understanding and relationship rather than through a protocol. If you have tried a structured programme and found it did not reach the thing underneath, this is a different route.
Alongside that I have trained in Internal Family Systems approaches to trauma, through Frank Anderson's programme. What that changes here is the question I am likely to ask. Rather than treating the worry as a fault to correct, we are more likely to get curious about the part of you doing the worrying: how old it feels, what it is trying to prevent, and what it has been protecting you from. Anxiety usually turns out to be a guard rather than a glitch.
A note on precision, because these terms get used loosely. That is training in the model. It is not certification by the IFS Institute, which runs a separate pathway of its own, and I do not claim it.
Who this suits, and who it does not.
A good fit if
You are a teen (16+) or an adult, the anxiety has been going on long enough that you have stopped expecting it to pass on its own, and you would rather understand it than manage it indefinitely. You do not need a diagnosis, a referral or a good reason.
Also a good fit if
You are articulate about the anxiety and nothing has shifted. Being able to explain something clearly can be its own way of keeping a distance from it, and that is workable.
Not the right thing if you need help today
I work by appointment and I am not a crisis service. If someone's life is at risk, call 999. For urgent mental health support at any hour, call NHS 111 and choose the mental health option. Samaritans are on 116 123, free, day or night.
Not what I offer
Couples or relationship counselling. If couples work is what you are looking for, it is worth asking your GP or searching the BACP directory for someone who does it.
What happens, from the first call onwards.
1
A free 15-minute call.
By telephone. You say as much or as little as you want. There is no assessment and nothing to prepare.
2
A first session.
Fifty minutes. We work out what has brought you and whether working together feels right. You decide afterwards, not during.
3
Then weekly, for as long as it is useful.
Same time each week. No minimum number of sessions and no contract. Some people come for six weeks, some for two years.
How much does anxiety counselling cost?
£80 for a fifty-minute session, payable a week in advance by bank transfer. The first fifteen-minute telephone call is free and carries no obligation. There is no assessment fee, no minimum number of sessions and no charge for ending.
If money is the thing that would stop you starting, or would make you stop before the work is finished, say so on the first call. I would rather have that conversation early than lose the work in month three.
Session
£80 for 50 minutes
First call
Free, 15 minutes, by phone
Cancellations
24 hours' notice moves a session rather than losing it
Frequency
Weekly, at the same time
Questions people ask first.
How long will it take?
Honestly, it depends, and anyone giving you a number without knowing you is guessing. Some people notice a difference within a few weeks. Longstanding anxiety with a long history behind it usually takes longer. We review it as we go, and you can stop whenever you want to.
Do I need a diagnosis?
No. You do not need a diagnosis, a GP referral, or a way of describing what is wrong. "Something is not right and I cannot name it" is an ordinary place to start.
Does it work online?
Yes, and for anxiety specifically some people find it easier, because being in your own space removes one of the things that has to be managed. You need somewhere you will not be overheard and a reasonable connection.
What if I cannot think of anything to say?
That happens often and it is not a problem to solve before you arrive. Silence in a session is not the same as silence anywhere else. If words are consistently the hard part, there are other ways in, and that is worth reading about.
Will you tell my GP?
No, unless I believe there is a risk to your life or someone else's, and wherever it is possible and safe I would talk to you about that first. The full position is in the terms.
I am already on medication. Does that matter?
Not in a way that stops us working. Medication is a matter for you and your GP, and I do not advise on it. Plenty of people do both.
Where we would meet.
Two consulting rooms, and online. People move between them as their circumstances change, and that is entirely normal.
Brighton.
Hollingbury Park Avenue, Fiveways, Brighton BN1 7JQ
In the Fiveways area, north of the city centre.
Lewes.
Netwerks Lewes, G06, 4 Fisher Street, Lewes BN7 2DG
Ground floor and step-free.
Online.
Anywhere in the UK, by video or by phone.
A private space where you will not be overheard, and a reasonable connection. Nothing else.
In their words.
“Amy was really easy to talk to right from the start and has a very gentle but friendly approach. […] I felt like I could say anything without feeling judged and often had moments of being able to see things differently thanks to her questions and the way she listened.”
Fifteen minutes, free, and you decide afterwards.
The first call is deliberately the smallest step there is. You do not need to explain anything on it, and there is no follow-up sequence chasing you if you decide not to book.
Usually a reply within a working day. BACP accredited, member 374395.