Basia Dereszewska

Counselling and Psychotherapy

I am a fully qualified and BACP registered humanistic integrative counsellor and psychotherapist, located in West London.

Counselling and Psychotherapy are often considered to be interchangeable terms. Usually counselling involves short term work and is recommended for specific issues such as a major life change or grief and takes place over weeks or several months. Psychotherapy is more open-ended and explorative, and tends to look at past issues that might be contributing to present day problems.

I offer both short-term and open-ended therapy, drawing on various modalities including person-centred, psychodynamic, attachment theory, gestalt, humanistic, CBT, transpersonal and TA.

I combine these theories, depending on your individual needs- no person's therapy will be the same combination as another's, it is all individual and specific to you.

I aim to listen and to see you, and to help you gain a greater insight into yourself in order to heal.

About

Prior to training as a therapist, my career spanned many diverse fields, which include luxury jewellery retail and production, fashion advertising, music promotion and independent design production, as well as completed teacher training in secondary schools. This mix of corporate and independent arenas where the stresses and strains varied vastly, has been an invaluable insight into understanding the diversity of challenges and differences that each presents.

Additionally, I am a parent of a young child and understand how difficult it is to juggle work and life in order to have a healthy work/life balance.

Approach

The relationship between client and therapist is a unique one, and it’s of upmost importance to me and my practice that it is this that provides a strong basis for the therapy to occur.

Talking to me rather than a friend or relative can be extremely helpful, especially if dealing with painful, difficult or shameful thoughts, situations and memories. I am trained to listen and allow you to be seen and heard and to provide a safe and non-judgmental space for you to discuss things that you may not be able to talk about with anyone else.

In turn we can collaborate and work together on whatever challenges or difficulties you are faced with by re-framing situations or trying to look at them in a different way to understand and unravel where and why the problem lies.

Talking openly and honestly can be a great form of release in itself.

Life is difficult sometimes and we can get ‘stuck’ and that’s OK. Being able to admit that you’re ‘stuck’ is the first and most difficult step.

Experience

I have had experience within my private practice and working for Mind charity with clients from the ages of 20 to 70+ seeking the need for help with a wide variety of issues including, anxiety, low self esteem, confidence issues, trauma, low mood/depression, bereavement, major life changes, self harm, addiction, work related issues, relationship difficulties and unhelpful thinking styles.

I also have lived experience of ADHD, NPD and BPD and have a particular interest in strained Mother /Daughter dynamics.