Dr Benedict Hoff
Integrative therapistAbout Me
You may be feeling stuck in a particular aspect of your life or be experiencing an underlying sense of unhappiness or anxiety. Or perhaps you want to work through something that's happened in the past. Or maybe you just want to get to know yourself better.
I take a creative, proactive approach to therapy, helping you find a way forwards and support you becoming the person you want to be and living the life you want to lead. I draw on humanistic, psychodynamic and mindfulness-based approaches to tailor my way of working to suit your particular needs.
I work with a range of issues in particular: anxiety, depression, stress, sexuality and psychosexual issues, gender identity, long-term health conditions and chronic pain.
What can I expect?
Counselling and psychotherapy is about supporting (and challenging) you to move from where you are to where you want to be. The first few sessions usually involve getting a clearer picture of your hopes and desires. Once we know what we're working towards we can think together about a plan for getting there. This can involve:
- * Becoming more conscious of relational patterns, thought processes and behaviours that are keeping you stuck
- * Increasing your capacity to sit with and process difficult feelings and emotions
- * Turning down the volume on your inner critic and increasing self-compassion
- * Working through unfinished business from the past including loss and trauma
- * Increasing your 'tool box' of supportive strategies and resources you can draw on when our work is over.
Counselling can be an organic free-flowing process or more explicitly structured and goal-orientated. I view a warm, holding and collaborative therapeutic relationship as central to the work. The patterns which inform your life 'outside' will often play out in the counselling room itself so the client-counsellor relationship is an ideal vehicle through which to work things through.
What's the next step?
Usually we'll schedule a free 20-minute telephone conversation to discuss your needs, followed by an initial 90-minute face-to-face meeting. This is for me to find out more about you, and for you to get a sense of how I work. If it feels right, we can schedule a regular time to meet, usually once a week for 50 minutes for as long is beneficial for you.
My background
I’m a BACP-registered counsellor and a trainee psychosexual therapist with a background as a lecturer/researcher in gender and sexuality studies.
I work as a Clinical Lead for Mental Health within an integrated sexual health service whilst running a private practice based in Peckham (currently all sessions online).
I'm also an Associate Mindfulness Teacher with Breathworks, with a specialism in teaching mindfulness-based approaches to managing stress, pain and illness, and I head up a Public Health England-funded Mindfulness-based chemsex recovery programme.
Locations
Issues often worked with
Types of therapy
Therapy offered
Client groups
Fees
Fitzrovia Practice W1 £110 per 50-minute session
Peckham Practice SE15 £90 per 50-minute session
Training and qualifications
- *Clinical Lead Mental Health SPECTRA CIC on behalf of CLCH and Wandsworth Council)
- *Post-Qualification Diploma in Schools and Adolescent Counselling (Metanoia Institute )
- *Research Associate in Mindfulness and Therapeutic Landscapes (Sheffield University)
- *Professional Diploma in Integrative Therapeutic Counselling (Mary Ward Centre)
- *Integrative Counsellor (West London Centre for Counselling/West London IAPT)
- *Mindfulness Teacher Training: Introductory and Advanced Levels (Breathworks)
- *Certificate in Person-Centred Counselling (LC&CTA)
- *Ph.D. in Gender/Sexuality Studies (Latin American Focus) (University of Liverpool)
- *BA(Hons) in Latin American Studies (University of Leeds)