Neill Bartlett, UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist

Neill Bartlett

Saffron Walden CB10 English
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Neill Bartlett, UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist

Neill Bartlett

Saffron Walden CB10 English
Email Therapist
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My Approach

I have many years' experience helping people with difficulties that affect their health, their relationships, their work and of course the way they feel about themselves. In my experience, such difficulties often revolve around both the loss of personal meaning and of a valued sense of direction in life. I believe my role as a therapist is therefore to provide my patients/clients with space and time to explore their sense of difficulty, to gain a greater understanding of what can often maintain them in that difficulty and to arrive at a renewed sense of freedom and choice. In order to change those things that we don't like about our lives - or about ourselves - it is my experience that we first need to be open to who we actually are, right now, in our lived experience. As this was put to me once, in order to get from A to B, we first must allow ourselves fully to be at A. It's then that things can begin to change.

The main areas of my work are:- chronic illness and pain, stress, anxiety, depression, traumatic injury, emotional abuse, relationship problems, chronic health concerns and compulsive over-eating and obesity.

I offer both long-term and short-term, time-focused therapy.

The initial assessment session, which I offer to anyone who is wanting to begin therapy, is an opportunity to clarify expectations, hopes and fears. It also provides a space to think about what therapy involves and how it might best be helpful.

I am a member of the Centre for Mindfulness Research & Practice (CMRP). I am a full Professional Member of the British Pain Society. I am a full professional member of the Association for Contextual and Behavioural Science (ACBS).

About Me

I am a psychoanalytic psychotherapist working in private practice. I worked for 20 years previously in specialist psychotherapy and medical teams in the NHS. I qualified in 2003 through the Arbours Association in London. Further to my psychoanalytic training, I have a PGCert in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) from the Centre for Mindfulness Research & Practice in Bangor. I have also trained in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy to an advanced level. My work reflects both my psychoanalytic training and my interest in 'third-wave' cognitive and behavioural therapies.

I work with

  • Companies
  • Individuals

Special Interests

Like all UKCP registered psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors I can work with a wide range of issues, but here are some areas in which I have a special interest or additional experience.

I am 57. I used to be 25. I will be 82. This makes being human a bit of a challenge at times, for me, for each of us. Ageing involves both fulfilment and loss, illness and, possibly, time to enjoy good health. The existential realities of living, ageing and dying are things that we all might benefit from talking openly about as each of us will find both light and dark in the experience. Age-related issues often present in therapy not so much in relation to bettering our metal health but in terms of finding personal meaning. These conversations can be freeing as well as challenging, long or short. It is very individual.
Anxiety is a natural and necessary part of our internal warning system. But, like any alarm system, it can become overly sensitive, sending false 'danger' signals and, at times, preventing us from getting on with life. This may be because we have in the past been overly exposed to actual dangers, perhaps through repeated traumatic events, possibly through adverse childhood experiences (ACE) which have primed us to be afraid through much of our lives. First and foremost, anxiety management involves learning to tolerate a certain amount of anxiety-related stress and worry without acting on it. Over time, this enables us to 'reset' our alarm system, making it more responsive to actual threats and less likely to be triggered by normal life events.
Chronic illness is of course a part of life for many people. I have worked as psychology-lead in an NHS pain service for seven years (2014-21) and have written and presented pain management programmes. I have also worked closely with patients living with chronic fatigue as well as with gastric problems, with MS, diabetes and gynaecological issues. Very often, longer-term illnesses do not respond well to our natural wish just to 'fix' the problem; in fact, this can actually build stress and make things worse for us. I work with clients/patients to enable them to manage their health (both physical and mental) in more functional, 'workable' ways, enabling them to get on with the lives they wish to lead. This often entails letting go of subtle 'control agendas', learning instead to meet each day as it comes with greater psychological (and physical) flexibility, whilst retaining a core sense of personal value and of purpose.
Gender is, inherently, an issue that affects us all. We are gendered as a species and the notion of what this means, how gender relates to sex, to identity, to personality - to our personal goals and to our dreams - has become a highly personal issue. I believe that my role as a therapist in relation to gender-based issues is to validate each individual's experience whilst offering the same reflective, thoughtful and at times challenging therapeutic space as I would to any other person asking for help.
Trauma is often thought to be what happens to you if you nearly die in a car accident or fall from a high building. This is true, of course. But, in fact, trauma can also be what happens to you if you have always struggled to relate to other people, if you have a chronic sense of a lack of self-worth or if you find yourself going through life either persistently angry or perhaps always frightened. These very personal experiences are often rooted in complex histories that can be very difficult to share or to articulate. It can, of course, be very difficult to trust that anyone will understand our private experience. My role as a therapist is not to judge or to leap to assumptions but to listen, to reflect, to help clients/patients find a renewed sense of meaning in their experience and thereby to recover a greater sense of direction and of purpose in their lives,

Types of Therapies Offered

  • Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist

What I can help with

  • Abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Bereavement
  • Bullying
  • Cancer
  • Chronic Illness
  • Depression
  • Eating Disorders
  • Employment Difficulties
  • Gender
  • Identity Problems
  • Mental Health Issues
  • Obsessions
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
  • Stress
  • Training
  • Trauma

Types of sessions

  • Face to Face - Long Term
  • Face to Face - Short Term
  • Online Therapy

Saffron Walden Office

Winstanley House
Market Hill
Saffron Walden CB10 1HQ
UK

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Cost:

£65 online, £70 in person

UKCP College

  • Council for Psychoanalysis and Jungian Analysis College (CPJAC)
Neill Bartlett

Neill Bartlett

Saffron Walden CB10
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