David Whistance

Fairly good availability at present. Please check Counselling > Appointment FAQs on my website for more details about my availability or just get in touch to find out more.

Hello and welcome.

Whatever's brought you here, let's see if we can gently untangle what you’re struggling with to support positive change in your life and relationships.

Lots of research suggests you'll benefit most from therapy if we can build a trusting relationship and you want to develop your self-awareness. To help get a sense of therapeutic relationship potential, I offer a free, no-obligation 20 minute phone-call or video chat. For what Dr Dan Siegel calls Mindsight, here are the main areas we'd focus on:

Listening and awareness. This is about meeting you where you are. It's about creating a witnessing space where we can meet your pleasant and painful thoughts and emotions with quiet and kind acknowledgement. For me, mindful listening is the heart of counselling/relational/self-healing.

Understanding. So, what's going on? What are the causes of key patterns or habits of living (made from ingredients such as thinking, feeling and doing) that you may feel stuck in? Time to put on your walking boots, grab a compass and other useful metaphorical resources and get into explorer mode.

Creating. With a deep-enough foundation of listening and understanding, we can then begin to create and test drive more helpful beliefs and habits. I also use creative methods to support the listening and understanding process. Adding creative exploration and play to talk therapy is optional but my experience over many years is that it helps most people to befriend stuckness and make meaningful change.

Balancing. I'm a holistic (AKA Gestalt) therapist and recognise we're a complex mixture of interacting parts. So, listening, understanding and creating influence each other and could help you feel more balanced and grounded. However, at times it can also help to use ideas and practical techniques that gradually build a sense of safety and calm, especially if you're struggling with high levels of anxiety or distress.

Feel free to check out my website. It says more about what I do and how we could work together, and it also has self-help resources (for managing stress, anxiety and more) that many people have benefited from over the years. Find out more at goodwillguidance.com > About > Self-help.

I worked as a Touch for Health kinesiology practitioner before doing my counselling training and remain committed to working in a holistic and embodied way. For example, I've used soothing and restoring energy psychology methods for many years and have developed my own approach which brings together my interests in:

• A Five Elements metaphor approach to parts work, including Internal Family Systems: This can give profound insights into what keeps us stuck.
• Using creative methods: A practical, fun and enriching way to support talking.
• Stress management: For gradually cultivating awareness, a more balanced nervous system and clearer thinking.

Talking of stress management, I also teach Autogenic Therapy which is a practical self-help method combining mindfulness and self-hypnosis.

As well as offering individual therapy, I run workshops to help counsellors and psychotherapists develop their use of creative approaches.

Your first session costs £40 and involves exploring and clarifying what brought you here and starting to identify what you want to change in your life. I may ask you to complete a self-assessment questionnaire if you're experiencing high levels of distress.

My usual fee for sessions two and after is £50 but I also offer a sliding scale based on people's ability to pay.