Richard Askew

My working hours are:

Monday to Thursday - 9:30am - 8:00pm

Friday - 9:30am - 5:00pm

Saturday - 9:30am - 1:00pm

Hello, I’m Richard. I’m an integrative therapist with over 15 years experience helping people from a wide variety of ages and backgrounds overcome challenges related to depression, anxiety, abuse, low self-esteem, interpersonal trauma, and relationship problems. I work both in person and online, giving you the flexibility to choose what feels most accessible and comfortable for you.

We all need to be seen, heard, and understood and I can offer a space where you can express yourself freely, help you make sense of the issues that hamper your life, and support you to bring about positive change in your life — free of the things that have hindered and held you back. 

My approach is integrative, drawing upon the core humanistic therapies (person-centred, gestalt, and transactional analysis), together with existential therapy, narrative therapy and Buddhist psychology, and ideas from a wide range of related fields. Alongside this, I also adopt a pluralistic perspective. Since no single approach can fully meet every person’s needs, I adapt my approach flexibly to respond to what you need, when you need it, rather than imposing rigid agendas or predetermined interventions. For instance, I might draw upon Buddhist psychology to explore patterns of emotional reactivity, lean into more existential approaches to explore questions of meaning and purpose, or draw upon narrative approaches to explore - and perhaps rewrite - the personal, familial and cultural stories that help to shape and define us. This allows for a responsive approach that is fundamentally guided by your goals, values and wishes. Above all, I respect your autonomy and see you as a person, not a bundle of problems.

Personal Therapy
Therapy can sometimes feel like a daunting prospect for newcomers, but it’s also perfectly recognisable:  we sit together and talk, taking turns, back and forth. You share your concerns and I offer ways of making sense of things.

Therapy is collaborative, so we spend our time figuring things out together. Our conversations might focus on how you feel about yourself, the quality of your relationships with other people, or your sense of place in the world.  The focus may shift from the past to the present, from significant life events to longstanding issues, and between difficult emotions, unhelpful beliefs, and more general challenges in engaging with life.  Our aim is to cultivate greater awareness and understanding so you can then implement transformative changes in your life — changes you bring about through your own endeavours.

Couples counselling
Relationships can be deeply rewarding, but we can be left feeling disappointed, guilty, rejected, or lonely when there are problems. Couples counselling offers an opportunity to explore the difficulties in your relationship and heal the breaches between you.

We’ll explore how you communicate and interact with each other; define the issues that drive your conflicts; and make sense of how you’ve arrived where you are today.  This will allow you to focus on the changes you’ll need to make to re-establish trust and create a new way of living together.

At the heart of my approach to couples counselling is a commitment to offer you both impartial support. Together, we can explore and resolve the conflicts that have arisen between you by improving communication; restoring affection; and cultivating the skills you’ll need to identify and assert your needs, wants and wishes more effectively. Perhaps our aim is to bring you closer together, but couples counselling can also help us bring our relationships to an amicable end if and when they’ve run their course.

Our first meeting affords us the opportunity to meet and begin building a foundation of trust, to understand what has brought you to counselling, and to explore what you hope to achieve.

> Foundations We start by introducing ourselves and talking through the practicalities—confidentiality, boundaries, session frequency, cancellations. I explain how I work, so you know what to expect, and invite any questions.

> Your Story  I’ll invite you to share whatever feels important: what has brought you here, how things are for you right now, what feels most pressing. You decide where to begin—there’s no fixed agenda.

> Exploring Goals:  We’ll talk about what you hope to get from counselling. These might be long-term aims or more immediate goals, and we’ll begin to explore how we can help you achieve them.

> Your Strengths & Resources  I’ll ask about what’s already working in your life—your supports, resilience, values. Drawing on your strengths is a key part of my approach, so identifying them early can help ground the work.

> Therapeutic Partnership:  I describe how we might work together: a flexible, evolving process where I bring interventions when helpful, but you lead in terms of what feels right. We’ll also discuss how we check in on progress, revisit goals, and adapt as needed.