You don’t need a quiet mind to begin.
Perhaps you spend a lot of time caught in your thoughts—worrying, replaying conversations or trying to work out how to feel better.
You may have tried mindfulness before and wondered whether you were doing it wrong. Or perhaps you’re interested in it, but don’t want another thing you have to fit into an already busy life.
I’m Chris, a BABCP-accredited CBT psychotherapist. I offer private, one-to-one therapy that can help you explore a different relationship with your thoughts and feelings, alongside practical changes in your life.
We’ll start with understanding what’s happening for you—not with the assumption that you need to meditate more.
An informal conversation with me to explore what you need and whether working together feels right. Meet me on Zoom, or request a phone call. No obligation to book therapy.
In person in Ferndown, Dorset · Online across the UK
Mindfulness involves noticing what is happening in the present: your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and surroundings. It isn’t about making your mind blank. It can help you recognise thoughts as mental events, rather than automatically treating them as facts or instructions.
In our sessions, we’ll connect that understanding to the situations you’re finding difficult.
Perhaps you become caught in worry, react in ways you later regret, or find it difficult to be present with the people you care about. We can explore what happens in those moments and what might help you respond differently.
The purpose isn’t to become good at mindfulness. It’s to make the work useful in your life.
You might have sat quietly, noticed how busy your mind was and concluded that you couldn’t do it.
A wandering mind does not mean you have failed. Mindfulness involves noticing when your attention has moved and learning how to respond—not preventing thoughts from appearing.
But I also won’t assume that a previous difficulty was simply a misunderstanding or that you need to try harder.
I’d want to hear what you tried, how it felt and whether anything was useful. We can then decide whether mindfulness has a place in our work, how to approach it, or whether something else would be more appropriate.
You don’t need to arrive convinced that mindfulness is the answer.
My approach draws on CBT, mindfulness, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and transformative approaches. You don’t need to know which approach you need before we speak.
CBT provides an evidence-based foundation for my therapy work. It is a recommended treatment for several mental health difficulties and includes working with both thinking and behaviour.
We’ll draw on other approaches where they are relevant, keeping our work focused on your needs and what we are trying to change.
I’ll help you make sense of what you’re experiencing without making it more complicated than it needs to be.
We might take a recent situation—a difficult conversation, a decision you keep revisiting or a moment when everything felt too much—and look at it together.
What was happening? What did you notice? What did you feel you had to do next?
We’ll work with your experience, rather than expect you to fit it into a particular explanation.
Sometimes it is useful to examine whether a thought is accurate. At other times, we may explore why it seems to need so much of your attention.
For example, you might already recognise that a worry is unlikely, but still feel you have to resolve it before you can get on with your day.
We could explore that feeling of having to resolve it, rather than keep searching for a more convincing answer to the worry.
This is part of what I mean by looking at your relationship with your thinking—not simply changing the words going through your mind.
I use the term psychological blindspots to describe familiar assumptions or ways of seeing things that can be difficult to notice in ourselves.
Perhaps you feel that you must be calm before you can cope with a situation. Or that the appearance of a self-critical thought means there is something about you that needs fixing.
We can look at those assumptions together.
I won’t tell you what you should believe. My role is to help you notice what you may not have seen and explore whether a different understanding opens up another way forward.
We may explore what happens when an uncomfortable feeling appears and you immediately try to solve it, escape it or act on it.
That doesn’t mean dismissing the feeling or forcing yourself to endure something overwhelming. We’ll work at a pace that makes sense for you.
It also doesn’t mean accepting circumstances that need to change. A boundary, a conversation or a practical decision may be just as important as how you respond internally.
The aim is to give you more room to choose your response—not to make you responsible for staying calm in every situation.
We can bring this work into ordinary moments, rather than keep it separate from the rest of your day.
Perhaps you’re listening to your partner or child while mentally going over work. We might explore how you notice that happening and return to the conversation without criticising yourself for having drifted away.
An email arrives and you feel you must respond immediately. We could look at that sense of urgency, what you assume will happen if you pause, and how you actually want to respond.
You’re doing something ordinary, but your mind is absorbed in an imagined argument or a future problem. We can explore how to recognise that shift and decide whether the thinking needs your attention.
In my earlier teaching, I used the phrase “the cinema of the mind” to describe getting drawn into the stories playing out in our thinking. We can use examples like this to make an abstract idea easier to recognise in your own experience.
One theme I often explore is the pressure to keep improving yourself.
You might already be trying hard to think differently, manage your emotions, get everything right and become a better version of yourself. I don’t want mindfulness to become another standard you feel you’re failing to meet.
There can be room in our work to question that pressure, too.
What happens when you’re not treating every uncomfortable moment as something to fix? What would it be like to enjoy a walk, a meal or a conversation without also checking whether you’re doing enough for your wellbeing?
We’ll explore these questions alongside the practical changes you need—not instead of them.
Our sessions are conversations about your life, with opportunities to explore and practise where that would be useful.
We’ll agree a focus together. That might involve understanding a pattern, looking at an assumption or trying a different response to a situation.
We may use a brief guided mindfulness exercise, but I’ll explain its purpose and ask about your experience. We’ll discuss whether it was useful rather than assume that completing an exercise is an achievement in itself.
Between sessions, we may agree something manageable to notice or try. The point is to connect our work with everyday life, not fill your week with tasks.
You can tell me when something doesn’t make sense, isn’t helping or feels uncomfortable. That is part of working together.
I spent 14 years working in the NHS and five years teaching CBT at university. My training includes mindfulness teaching, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
I also previously developed and delivered a Mindful Resilience course, exploring how mindfulness could be understood and used in everyday life. That teaching experience continues to inform my individual work.
I aim to make psychological ideas understandable and relevant to the person in front of me.
You don’t need to know the terminology or have any previous experience. We can work things out together.
Sometimes the useful question is: what can we stop doing?
My book, A Clear Mind: The Less Is More Mindset to Wellbeing & Performance, explores a perspective that runs through my work: moving forward isn’t always about adding more techniques, more analysis or more pressure to improve.
Sometimes it involves recognising an assumption, stepping out of an unhelpful struggle or seeing something familiar differently.
The book offers another way to explore these ideas. You don’t need to read it before working with me.
I offer individual sessions in Ferndown, Dorset, for adults living locally and travelling from Bournemouth, Poole, Wimborne and the surrounding area.
I also work online across the UK.
Sessions cost £95 and last 55 minutes. The introductory 20-minute call is free and takes place on Zoom, with telephone calls available on request.
Mindfulness can be a focus of our work or part of a wider approach. We’ll discuss what you need before deciding how to proceed.
Meditation is one way to practise mindfulness, but it can also be explored through ordinary activities and awareness of your surroundings. Formal practice can be useful; it is not the only starting point.
We’ll discuss whether it would help our work and what would be realistic for you. There is no expectation that you arrive with an established meditation routine.
Not necessarily. Some people find it helpful; others find that certain practices do not help or make them feel worse. The NHS mindfulness guidance also recognises that it is not right for everyone.
Please tell me about any previous difficult experiences. We can adapt what we do, stop an exercise or choose another approach. You won’t be expected to push through something simply because it is called mindfulness.
No. You don’t need to adopt a belief system or agree with a particular philosophy.
I use straightforward psychological explanations and your own experience as our starting points. There is room to explore wider questions when they matter to you, but that is not a requirement.
This page describes individual therapy with me, where mindfulness may be integrated with other approaches. It is not an invitation to enrol in a formal Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) programme.
Please mention it when you contact me if you are specifically seeking a structured MBCT course, so we can clarify what you need.
That is useful for us to discuss.
I’ll want to understand what the work involved, what helped and what you felt was missing. We can then consider whether working with me could be an appropriate next step.
I won’t assume you need more of the same—or that mindfulness must be the answer because another approach didn’t help.
We’ll discuss this after getting a clearer understanding of what you want help with.
We’ll agree a possible course of work and review it together, including whether it is helping and whether the focus needs to change. You can raise questions about time, cost or the direction of therapy at any point.
You don’t need to be good at meditation, know which therapy you need or have a perfectly worded explanation.
Tell me what you’re finding difficult. Ask the questions that matter to you. Then decide whether you’d like to take the next step together.
Meet me on Zoom, or request a phone call. No obligation to continue.