Welcome

I believe in being as effective as possible in everything I do. My aim in both professional and personal life is to be the best version of myself that I can be. I do this by frequently measuring how well I am doing and holding myself accountable for my methods and practices through a process of regular review and ongoing development.

In my work as a counselling psychotherapist what clients say to me is kept confidential. As a senior accredited member I adhere to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) ethical framework for good practice in counselling and psychotherapy. Confidentiality could lead to a lack of accountability. Writing in the 1940s and 50s, psychologist Professor Hans Eysenck at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London created an uproar when he challenged Freud’s approach for it’s secretiveness and lack of robust evidence of effectiveness. Part of keeping myself accountable, includes measuring psychological wellbeing data for all clients who consent to this (in line with BACP research guidelines). Comparing outcome data with an initial start point gives a measurable indicator of progress. I regularly publish these anonymised client outcomes on this site, this keeps me accountable and encourages me to continuously improve.

I researched the science of measuring therapy outcomes during 2004-2011 when I did my masters dissertation and subsequent doctoral thesis on the clinical effectiveness of counselling and psychotherapy. My doctoral research included outcomes for 321 clients of 27 fellow therapists, including 137 of my own clients. It was for this research that I was awarded the BACP 2011 award for Outstanding Research Project, presented by comedian and mental health campaigner Ruby Wax (see left).

Paradoxically, the science of measuring outcomes demonstrates the art of achieving good outcome is for the practitioner, ‘in the moment’, to put aside striving for ‘a good outcome’ in favour of being genuinely warm and empathic. This could be described as an aim to be compassionately effective with all clients I work with. In addition to the quantitative approach described above, outside of client sessions I regularly qualitatively reflect on my clinical practice. It is this learning and analysis that informs my therapeutic presence.

As at January 2023 this site shows outcomes for clients who  I have worked with at this practice, including 188 clients with anxiety, 302 clients with depression, 381 clients presenting for general counselling, 124 clients with anger management problems. These outcomes are for clients who presented with a full range of different problems, including  abuse, addiction, anger, bereavement, relationship difficulties at work and/or at home and so on.

The site also gives information about common symptoms described by clients and includes outcomes for some underlying difficulties they experience, including attachment styles, rejection sensitivity, managing difficult feelings & thoughts and being oneself in a psychologically mature manner. The idea is that working with underlying difficulties is the most effective way of reducing risk of relapse and creating sustainable change. My own integrative practice, incorporates what research evidence shows to be the most effective elements from many schools of psychotherapy, including humanistic therapies, psychodynamic therapies and cognitive behavioural therapies (CBT).

In my private practice I work with individual clients, couples, family and work groups plus supervisees in quiet and comfortable surroundings in a thatched cottage reputed to be four hundred years old. Online appointments are also available. The cottage was re-thatched in Spring 2019 in a process described here.

The village of Horseheath is close to Cambridge, 11.5 miles south of Addenbrookes NHS Hospital, just off the A1307 (and on the 13 bus route) in South Cambridgeshire, close to Suffolk, Hertfordshire and Essex. Distances from local centres are: Bishops Stortford 20 miles, Braintree 20 miles, Sudbury 20 miles and Bury St Edmunds 21 miles. The photographs on this website were taken by me in the cottage garden and the village.

At present my professional fees are £105 per one hour session for individual clients, plus an additional £25 per one hour session for each additional person, so couples are £130 per one hour session.

The fastest and most convenient to contact me is tony.weston5@btinternet.com to make an initial appointment.

At a typical first appointment I’ll ask you to complete some paperwork for me, which will include some psychological questionnaires. The results of which I will share with you. If I seem like someone you can work with I’ll ask you to take away some further questionnaires to complete and post back to me (it turns out the most effective way of doing this is for me to give all clients a stamped self-addressed envelope). Taking all of this together I would usually be able to present you with a plan of how I think we can accomplish your goals through working together, at our second appointment.

Sometimes clients ask me how many sessions they’ll need to achieve their desired outcome(s). There is no one answer to this because everyone and their situation is unique. How many sessions you have is up to you. Elsewhere on this website it says the average number of sessions clients have had to achieve particular outcomes. As at January 2023 this was an average of nine sessions for the anxiety outcomes shown, nine sessions for the depression outcomes and six sessions for the distress outcomes (general counselling). Some clients have less sessions, some have more, some have many more. The number of sessions you have is up to you, and is a matter of individual needs and goal(s).

You can contact me by phone on 01223 894896, answered by a receptionist 24/7. A faster method of communication is to email me at tony.weston5@btinternet.com for enquiries and to make an initial appointment.