A collaborative approach to therapy.
Hi, I’m Matt
I am a qualified psychotherapist and counsellor, working in Scarborough and Malton. I have a post-graduate diploma in integrative psychotherapy and counselling, with a basis in person-centred therapy. I’m a member of the BACP.
But beyond the jargon, I am an inclusive and affirming therapist who views therapy not as just a means to recovery, but as a tool for growth. A tool which we can use together, collaboratively, to enable you to make meaningful and lasting change.
Why Choose Therapy With Matt?
Person Centred
Putting you at the core of therapy,
Tailoring it to what suits you,
Basing the process we undertake on your strengths and abilities,
Understanding that you possess your own answers; my job is to help you uncover them
Integrative
Incorporating theory, skills and techniques from other types of therapy
Ensuring your therapy is unique and tailored to what suits you
I draw from CBT, Gestalt, psychodynamic and existential therapy amongst other modalities
Flexible
Adjustable fees
Evening sessions
Varied delivery options
Multiple locations for in-person work
How much does it cost?
The short bit: £40/hour is standard, £45 for unsociable hours. I will try and accommodate where I can, including NHS, student discounts and the Pay-it-Forward scheme (see below).
The long bit: In order to try and provide an accessible and affordable service to those who have financial barriers to more traditional therapy, I provide guidance below for more financially comfortable clients who can afford a little more, inviting you to pay more for your sessions to help cover the costs of running affordable therapy sessions for others.
How will our sessions happen?
I offer sessions in person: either in a counselling room, or walk-and-talk therapy (subject to location), online through Teams or Zoom, or by phone.
I can offer in person sessions in Scarborough and Malton, subject to room availability.
Sessions generally last an hour, though I do offer 90 minute appointments. For new clients, I typically recommend weekly sessions as a minimum until you’ve gotten a feel for therapy.
I can offer evening sessions, but cannot offer weekends at present.
The “Pay-it-Forward“ Scheme
Therapy is a costly prospect. Cost is one of the main barriers to many people accessing therapy. As an individual therapist I find myself stuck between the desire to help people and the need to make a living. The push and pull of this led me to the idea of the Pay-it-Forward Scheme (PFS).
Whilst my flat rate is £40/hr, I invite clients to consider their financial status, and whether or not they could afford to pay more: if one financially comfortable client pays £60, that allows me to facilitate a £20 session for someone who could not access therapy at usual cost.
The PFS is a community-minded project, and will operate in a voluntary way, if you can afford more please consider it. I won’t be “policing“ who pays what, it will be based off individuals’ own judgement as to if they feel they can give a little more.
Let’s work together.
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and I will be in touch shortly. I look forward to hearing from you!
Would you like to know more about who you’ll be working with?
If you’ve scrolled this far, I suppose I should tell you a little about myself.
I was drawn to becoming a therapist through experiencing my own mental health difficulties, predominantly anxiety and depression, including suicidal thoughts and self-harm. It might not surprise you to know that one of the key things which helped me escape these cycles of anxiety and depression was therapy!
Since that time in my life, I have worked in psychiatry in the NHS, volunteered with Samaritans and worked for Community Counselling in Malton. This range of experience has proven to me that working with, not dictating to, is the most effective, lasting way of helping people to achieve their desired growth and change.
I have significant experience working with:
Anxiety
Depression
Eating disorders
Gender and sexuality
Neurodiversity
Substance abuse problems
Trauma and PTSD
Psychosis
Suicidality
Carl Rogers, the ‘father‘ of Person-Centred Therapy used a brilliant metaphor for our potential as humans to grow and change. A metaphor of potatoes!
I remember that in my boyhood, the bin in which we stored our winter’s supply of potatoes was in the basement, several feet below a small window. The conditions were unfavourable, but the potatoes would begin to sprout — pale, white sprouts, so unlike the healthy green shoots, they sent up when planted in the soil in the spring. But these sad, spindly sprouts would grow 2 or 3 feet in length as they reached toward the distant light of the window. The sprouts were, in their bizarre, futile growth, a sort of desperate expression of the directional tendency I have been describing. They would never become plants, never mature, never fulfil their real potential. But under the most adverse circumstances, they were striving to become. Life would not give up, even if it could not flourish. In dealing with clients whose lives have been terribly warped, in working with men and women on the backwards of state hospitals, I often think of those potato sprouts. So unfavourable have been the conditions in which these people have developed that their lives often seem abnormal, twisted, scarcely human. Yet, the directional tendency in them can be trusted. The clue to understanding their behaviour is that they are striving, in the only ways that they perceive as available to them, to move toward growth, toward becoming. To healthy persons, the results may seem bizarre and futile, but they are life’s desperate attempt to become itself.
Carl Rogers A way of being (1980)