Welcome
I am a counsellor available in Central London on Tuesdays and in Dorking, Surrey on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Counselling is totally confidential- whatever you bring to the counselling room stays in it. As a counsellor and psychotherapist, I am empathic, non-judgmental, with a deep respect for each and every client.
I bring to counselling and psychotherapy my commitment - honed over many years of practice with both individuals and couples – to be the catalyst to help and support clients to work through the problems they bring.
My intention is to provide a safe, confidential and creative environment in which we work together to clear the way to new understandings and beginnings for you.
Bill Baker
B.Sc MA MBACP
NB: I work in central London in the Harley Street medical area and in counselling in Dorking in English but I have a knowledge of French, German and Russian - further information.
Latest testimonial
More client testimonials
First steps to getting started
I aim to find you an appointment within a week. Appointments are scheduled for a 'therapeutic hour' (50 minutes face-to-face).
I will arrange an initial appointment with you first. The initial appointment gives you the opportunity to meet me and experience how I work. We discuss what you want to achieve and at the end there is plenty of time for any questions regarding fees, appointment times etc. and to discuss how you wish to continue
When calling or emailing please specify if you wish to see me in London or Dorking - this effects appointment times available and the fee level. I operate a discretionary sliding scale of fees to enable greater access at less busy times. Appointments at weekends or out of hours are by special request only.
Call 07816 768470 or Email me
I can help you too
As a counsellor and psychotherapist in Central London, working in the Harley Street medical area, as well as counselling in Dorking in Surrey
I can help with:
- relationships – heterosexual and LGBT
- couples
- depression
- anxiety
- stress & panic attacks
- anger management
- addictions
- bereavement & loss
- trauma & PTSD
- creativity
- midlife crisis
- self-esteem
- adoption issues for adults
- identity
- psycho-sexual Issues
- Young people, adolescents
Counselling in Central London
13 John Prince's Street
London
W1G 0JR
Appointment in London Tuesdays 11.30am - 8pm
Email me or call Central London counselling and psychotherapy: 07816 768470
Counselling Dorking
My Dorking Counselling and Psychotherapy practice is situated close to Dorking High Street and a fifteen-minute walk from Dorking Rail station. Free client parking is available. Dorking is easily accessible from Reigate, Leatherhead, Horsham and Guildford and the villages around such as Buckland, Brockham, Westcott, Box Hill and Mickleham, Abinger Hammer, Gomshall and Shere.
Email me or call Dorking Counselling: 01306 501207 or 07816 768470
New Dorking room
The new Dorking counselling room in operation in 2016 - after building and refurbishment during the last year.
Appointments in Dorking now available on Wednesdays and Thursdays 9am -9pm
Couple Counselling
Couple counselling is for all relationship problems whether in a marriage, with a partner of either sex or with girlfriend or boyfriend. It is very different from individual counselling in that we are looking at what is happening in the space between the couple - the relational space.
In working with couples I draw on the ideas and practice of some of the western world's leading relationship experts. As humans we all crave connections. Isolation is one of the worst punishments. Relationships are what we do.
There is a way through the misery of a relationship in trouble where the space between the couple has become polluted. However, it needs skilled navigation to chart the journey and sometimes even then it is not possible and then counselling can help in the ending...
For more information Couples counselling section
For couple work I take my inspiration from the work of Hedi Schleiffer who has developed the concept of "Crossing the Bridge" to your partner to reconnect above the pollution that all too easily can leak into our relationship.
For more about couple counselling and the video of Hedi's TED talk Couples counselling section
Skype Counselling
I offer Skype counselling for anyone globally and welcome clients from across the world.
My Skype clients can be British expats living outside the UK, or business people and others who travel a lot and are only able to visit London at certain times.
Skype, plus some face-to-face work when the client is in the UK, can be a most effective combination.
Telephone Counselling
While my psychotherapy and counselling practice in the Harley Street medical area is accessible from all over London, for those who do not want or are unable to come into central London, I offer telephone counselling. This is especially helpful for anyone with disabilities including clients who suffer from anxiety about going out or travelling who finds it difficult to get to appointments.
Central London Executive Counselling Service
My central London executive service consists of individually tailored intensives available to top professionals, celebrities and senior executives where time is of the essence and often global travel precludes a 'normal' therapy routine of weekly appointments.
Please enquire further Email me
Central London Counselling for Overseas & Expat clients
For overseas clients of my Central London Psychotherapy practice and UK expats on limited time visits to the UK I offer specially tailored intensive packages.
For more information Email me
Why see a counsellor?
It's so easy to carry problems and issues. Like leaches they cling to us, become part of us and we often don't realise how much of a burden they have become. It is like carrying a heavy weight is the old expression and it is true. Our problems weigh us down, get under our skin, do our head in and make us feel like retreating from the world and going under the bed clothes. Often clients say to me that their head is spinning from the noise, the chatter of competing worries, thoughts and arguments raging inside. No wonder many complain of a headache!
Life does not have to be like this and we are able to do something about it to liberate ourselves and counselling is a high road to that liberation. In the confidentiality of the counselling room, with a skilled listener and facilitator which is what a counsellor is trained to do, you can begin to unload those concerns. Then you can start to examine them and begin to understand them...
Choosing your counsellor
So you've decided you need to see a counsellor but how on earth do you find the right one? There are some straight forward practical issues of accessibility to where you are, where you live or where you work. Then having defined the area or areas you want to look in, Google can do the rest both in bringing up individual counsellors and in bringing up the directory websites such as the BACP's http://www.itsgoodtotalk, Counselling Directory, rsccp or the Natural Health directory etc.
You may feel you would rather have a male or female therapist or indeed one that specialises in gay, lesbian or transgender clients, younger , older etc. That has to be entirely up to you. If that's what you feel, follow that feeling in the choices you make. It's your therapist you are choosing and you may be working with him or her for some considerable time.
Whichever way you trawl the net, you will end up looking at individual psychotherapist's web sites. Then how do you choose the one?
Gut feeling. There will be details of qualifications etc all worth scanning through. However, the basis for successful counselling is what is termed the "therapeutic relationship" between client and therapist. If you instinctively feel you can trust, be at ease and can work with this therapist then that's the right person for you.
Most therapists offer an initial appointment, as I do, so you can experience working together. You may wish to have more than one initial appointment and then make a decision but in my experience, if the initial appointment with the therapist of choice works well, then I suspect most people decide to go that route.
If it feels right then research underscores that whatever the therapists modality, the the therapy is likely to be beneficial. If you don't feel comfortable - not a chance. Look again. The counselling room is where you want to be able to share your innermost thoughts and be comfortable with that. Trust is basic. The therapeutic process is built on that.
I aim to give clients the tools and understanding to transform their state of ‘dis-ease’ into a state of feeling good or even great - and at least OK. Many clients do have a real sense of lightness when they have lost the weight of their worry.
Our deepest fear
This poem was quoted by Nelson Mandela when he became President of South Africa after a lifetime of struggle and incarceration under the vicious apartheid regime of that country. Here is an excerpt go to my Inspirations page for the full version...
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.
Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won't feel insecure around you.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we're liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
September blog: New day and new room in London for a new term
The schools are back and soon the universities and colleges will follow. Somehow it feels the right time for a new start and this year as of September I will be in a new even more comfortable counselling room in our building a step away from Oxford Circus and on a new day - Tuesday.
We have undergone a refurbishment and expansion over the summer and my freshly decorated new counselling room is on the ground floor so no steps are involved any longer. In addition the reception and admin desk has sensibly moved to the front by the entrance door with a waiting area if you arrive early
Appointments are available Tuesdays 11.30 -8pm
Blog March 2016 - Sex in the Counselling Room
Sex is everywhere. We are surrounded by images, adverts, news stories, TV dramas, books and films in which sex features large. The advertising and marketing industry is not wrong: sex sells - it triggers a response like nothing else does.
But talking frankly about sex in the counselling room is often not easy. It is all too easy to come with problems in a relationship and not mention the sex. Yet from adolescent to mature adult and on into old age sex or the absence of it, or the craving for it is a powerful, often the most powerful force in our lives.
So it is important that the therapeutic relationship you have with your counsellor and the 'working alliance' that you form in counselling sessions enables you to talk about anything including the ‘strangest', most way-out thoughts, fantasies, dreams, worries and experiences in any and every sphere of your life, including the most intimate sexual and personal spheres.
If stuff in these areas is concerning you, you have to feel utterly free to talk about it in a totally non-judgemental, understanding and empathic space - after all that is why you are spending good money on counselling fees.
Bill Baker Counsellor & Psychotherapist in the Harley Street medical district in Central London and in Dorking in Surrey
- Bill Baker's counselling and psychotherapy practice was established in Harley Street, Central London in the heart of Harley Street medical area well-known internationally. Bill has continued to practice as a counsellor and psychotherapist in the Harley Street medical district. Harley Street psychotherapy and counselling was only one of two locations and Bill also established a practice in Dorking, Surrey. Today Bill continues as a psychotherapist/counsellor in Dorking, Surrey serving residents and commuters in the Leatherhead, Dorking and Mole Valley area. Bill's Surrey clients also come from the Reigate, Horsham and the Sussex/Surrey borders. Bill's Surrey Practice is in Dorking, near Dorking Hospital, and 10 minutes from Dorking High St and a 15 minute walk from Dorking Rail stations. Email meDorking is in Mole Valley – off the M25 J10 through Leatherhead and Mickleham and easily accessible via the A24. There is client parking. Locally the Bill Baker Counselling and Psychotherapy in Dorking serves all Mole Valley including the nearby towns of Reigate, Epsom, Horsham and Guildford and the surrounding villages of Betchworth, Brockham, Bookham, Fetcham and Ashtead. Bill's counselling and psychotherapy practice in London was in Wimpole Street for some years and before that in Weymouth Street near the London Clinic. Bill's psychotherapy and counselling practice is now located near Harley Street, off Cavendish Square at 13 John Prince's Street, Cavendish Square, London W1G 0JR - conveniently only a 2 minutes from Oxford Circus Underground Station and Oxford Street and Regent Street,. It is just along from John Lewis, making it very accessible from anywhere in central London. Bill has also developed a global counselling and psychotherapy practice through Skype building on his Harley Street psychotherapy practice, serving UK expats in several locations such as Dubai, Hong Kong and Macau in China as well as being available to international clients worldwide.
