Are you looking for a confidential safe space where you can talk to a trained professional at a mutually agreed time on a weekly basis?
My name is David Bellamy and I am a counsellor based in Notting Hill, Kensington and Chelsea. I have 30 years experience working with a wide variety of clients from different backgrounds and with diverse problems. I am committed to providing counselling and psychotherapy in a safe, confidential and non-judgemental environment and a comfortable private setting.[see above].
How I work and what I offer
My first objective is to build a relationship with you with empathy, warmth, kindness and compassion.This is to allow trust to develop between us.
I am keen to work with you, exploring your personal history including your early years, adolescence, and adulthood up to the present. This will inform us of the messages you received from the significant people in your life and what shaped you to be who you are now. Your self identity, including how you feel about yourself, your self esteem.
Delving into the past helps us to make links from past to now and give us clues to why you may feel anxious, have mood swings or feel depressed.
Looking at your personal characteristics also helps you to understand what parts of your character were and were not encouraged. In this work, you can begin to reclaim parts of yourself that you felt were criticised, shamed or embarrassed.
Carl Jung called this Shadow work and our shadow is most easily accessed through dreamwork, a gateway to the unconscious. I have several years of experience working with clients and their dreams.This work of becoming aware of lost or hidden shadow characteristics helps you to become more whole, more connected to your true self, more authentic and less anxious.
My objective for you is to move towards wholeness, becoming aware of every aspect of your true self without judgement or criticism. Being able to be vulnerable in the therapeutic space is an important part of my work with you, so I aim to provide a space that feels safe to do that, including creating an awareness of and working with past wounds and traumas. Expressing feelings and tracking sensations in the body is vital in this work.
If you are going through a crisis in your life, or an experience that feels unmanageable or you need an independent, objective, professional, companion with whom to talk things through, please reach out. I have thirty years experience helping a diverse client group.
The purpose of the work.
I work with both individuals and couples on an open-ended basis or for an agreed time period, with the aim of enabling you to enhance your life and to live it more fully. This includes working alongside you to help resolve current problems and to make sense of whatever may be happening in your life.
What I Offer.
You may want to look at unresolved issues, old wounds, or any struggles or challenges you are experiencing. I can offer perspective, feedback and an opportunity to understand more fully who you are and to make sense of life. I offer you an opportunity in a supportive environment to look deeply and realistically at all aspects of yourself-body, mind, feelings, spirit including relationships with others and decisions about life and work.
We do this in the hope that it will make life more fulfilling and help to enhance our lives and the lives of others. The aim of therapy is to aid people in problems of living, to increase their sense of well-being and reduce their subjective sense or discomfort or distress.
About Me.
I began my professional life working with children 0-16 years old and their families in North Kensington in various settings. This, I believe is the groundwork for psychotherapy as child/human development is the base for many counselling theories. It was also an invaluable introduction to working with people from all ages, backgrounds, and life experiences within my own varied community in West London.
My current practice as a counsellor and psychotherapist is in Notting Hill in West London. Alongside the above I have worked in the HIV Aids field for the past 25 years in both individual and group settings with a diverse set of clients. For nine years I worked as a lecturer facilitating students who wished to train as counsellors.
My Work Ethics.
I am a member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy and abide by the ethics of that organisation. I am also accredited by the B.A.C.P. I can be found in that organisation's directory in the west London therapy section.
I am experienced in helping clients who have experienced difficulties with :
- Self Esteem
- Stress
- Anxiety/depression/anger
- Finding meaning in life.
- Relationship problems/ Intimacy/Isolation.
- Bereavement
- Gender/sexuality issues
- Childhood.
- Addiction/self harm
- Aspects of self.
- Childhood issues/child abuse
My counselling and therapy practice is in Notting Hill, Kensington and Chelsea. If you are looking for a counsellor or psychotherapist in west/central London feel free to contact me.The nearest underground stations are Notting Hill Gate, Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park.
The cost per session is £70 to £90 dependant on income.Student and unwaged prices can be negotiated.
