START COUNSELLING

Dear Reader,

 

I'm Rob Stuart, a friendly and engaging Psychodynamic Counsellor with substantial experience in the mental healthcare sector in London.  Since 2008, I’ve taken up a number of roles in a variety of private, public and charitable settings.  

 

In the early days, I started out as a Support Worker in a private residential care home.  I cared for people with chronic mental health conditions, including paranoid schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and various personality disorders.  Some were delusional, others suffered from incurable organic damage.  It was an invaluable experience. 

 

I then moved to the NHS, where I worked as a Clinical Support Worker in several Crisis Teams across Camden.  I assisted people in acute distress, often immediately after they had presented at A&E.  I met a very high number of patients suffering from every conceivable mental health condition, including emotionally unstable personality disorder, schizoaffective disorder.  Some were suicidal, others had attempted self-harm; all required a high level of clinical intervention. 

 

In my last role in paid employment, I moved to the charity sector, where I worked as a Community Link Worker for the suicide prevention charity, Maytree.  Maytree offers people in suicidal crisis emotional telephone support and a, crucially, place to stay.  As part of my role, I created the extremely popular Maytree Suicide Awareness and Prevention training program, which I delivered to other statutory and third sector professionals, including other counsellors. 

 

Between 2012 – 2017, I worked for the NHS as an Honorary Psychotherapist in a psychotherapy team based in Westminster.  I offered once-weekly individual psychotherapy to patients suffering from anxiety, depression and emotionally unstable personality disorder.  After specialist in-house training, I began assessing patients in 2016 under the supervision of an experienced Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy and helped many patients access some of the best NHS services in London.

 

I trained to become a Psychodynamic Counsellor for five years at Birkbeck College, University of London – a well-respected and highly rated university.  In 2014, I graduated with an MSc in Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy and became a Registered Member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy.  I am proud to say that in 2017, I was accepted as a member of the prestigious British Psychoanalytic Council, largely off the back of the work I did with the NHS in Westminster. 

 

I set up my private company, Start Counselling Limited, in 2014.  ‘Start Counselling’ is an idea that developed out of my experience in the mental healthcare sector.  I met so many people in acute distress.  They told me of the suffering they had endured, often over many years, without ever having spoken to anyone.  They had long since stopped taking pleasure from life.  And that’s how the idea was born: ‘Start Living, Start Counselling’. 

 

I now offer once-weekly individual psychodynamic counselling to a diverse range of adults suffering a wide variety of everyday problems, including stress, depression, anxiety, self-esteem and relationship difficulties.  My practice is based in Walthamstow and, if you believe counselling may be of benefit to you, you are welcome to contact me for an introductory, no-obligation session. 

 

I hope to hear from you soon. 

 

Start Counselling, Start Living!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ROB STUART, BA, PG Dip, MSc, MBACP, BPC