Helen Downs, NCPS

Helen Downs is a counsellor who helps people facing stress, anxiety, addictions and trauma. She supports those dealing with low self-esteem, relationship and intimacy issues, grief, parenting strains and life changes. Helen also works with people affected by ADHD, compassion fatigue and illness-related challenges. She practises in the United Kingdom and offers sessions in English. Helen uses a blend of practical talking therapies and hypnotherapy to help people move forward. She draws on seven years as a hypnotherapist and seven years of wider professional experience to shape sessions around each person’s needs. Her style is respectful and down-to-earth, focusing on small, manageable steps rather than big prescriptions. In sessions she listens first and then helps clients set clear, short-term goals. Helen uses techniques from cognitive behavioural approaches to spot thinking patterns that cause distress. She also applies elements from dialectical work to teach calming and emotion-management skills. Her background includes working with neurodiverse people and within prison services, which informs how she adapts practical strategies for different settings. Helen says she aims to create a calm space where people can plan changes and rebuild a sense of direction. Clients usually work on coping strategies, improving daily routines such as sleep and eating, and handling relationship or career pressures. She encourages small experiments in real life, then reviews what helped and what needs adjusting.

How Helen’s approaches translate to online therapy

Client-Centred Therapy focuses on listening and reflecting what the client says. It helps people feel heard and clarifies what they want to change. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT, looks at thoughts and behaviours that keep problems going and uses small experiments to test new ways of thinking and acting. These approaches suit anxiety, low mood, sleep and many everyday worries.

Helen also draws on aspects of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy to teach practical emotion-regulation and distress-tolerance skills. These are short, teachable techniques that can be practised between sessions to help with overwhelming feelings and impulsive responses.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work. Helen will discuss goals and preferences and help decide which methods fit best. That choice is collaborative and can change as progress is made.

The practical benefit of online sessions is often fitting therapy into a busy life. Many people find it easier to schedule shorter check-ins around work or family demands, and to practise techniques in the everyday places where they occur. The original profile does not list specific session formats, so please confirm current online options before booking.