Online · One-to-one · Anywhere in the UK

Divorce Counselling — Finding Your Feet on the Other Side

I'm Brian Sheppard, a clinical psychotherapist and mental health specialist, UKCP registered, with over 25 years in mental health. Separation and divorce pull the floor out from under people who were coping fine a year ago. I work one-to-one with people going through it, or long past it and still not through it, so there's somewhere to put everything the solicitor doesn't want to hear.

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UKCP registered
50-minute sessions on Zoom
£80 a session

Does this sound familiar?

Who this is for

People in the middle of a separation, or a long way after one that hasn't settled. You might recognise some of this:

You're holding it together for the kids, the job and the solicitor, and coming apart in the car
The anger arrives at three in the morning and there's no one it's safe to say it to
You didn't want this, and everyone keeps telling you it's for the best
You did want this, and the guilt is worse than you expected
The house, the money and the calendar have all become weapons, and you're worn out
You've lost friends you thought were yours, and half the family along with them
You're a father working out how to stay a dad from a different postcode
The decree came through months ago and you still can't work out who you are now

There's no correct way to feel about the end of a marriage, and no deadline for being over it. If it's taking longer than the people around you seem to think it should, that's a reason to talk, not a failing.

Let's talk it through

My approach

How I work with divorce and separation

Divorce is a bereavement nobody sends a card for. You lose a partner, a version of your future, often a home, sometimes half your friends, and you're expected to negotiate the whole thing calmly with the one person you can least afford to be calm with. I've worked in mental health for over 25 years, and I've seen what happens when people try to do all that with nowhere to put the feeling. It comes out sideways: in the emails to the solicitor, at the school gate, in a bottle, in the silence with the kids.

Our sessions are one-to-one. I don't hold joint sessions with your ex, I'm not a mediator, and I'm not a lawyer; I won't advise you on the settlement or the contact arrangements. What I do is give you an hour a week where you don't have to be reasonable. You can be furious, ashamed, relieved and heartbroken, all four before the half hour, and none of it will be held against you or used in evidence.

I work in a person-centred way, so there's no programme and no stages you're supposed to have reached. Some weeks you'll want to make sense of what went wrong. Some weeks you'll want to work out how to answer a message without starting a war. Some weeks you'll just need to say out loud how much it hurts. All of that is the work.

I have a particular interest in how men go through this, because so many of them do it alone. But this page is for anyone whose marriage or long relationship is ending. Sessions are 50 minutes over Zoom, from wherever you can speak freely; for a lot of people mid-divorce, that turns out to be the car.

Questions I'm often asked

Is it too early, or too late, for divorce counselling?

Neither. Some people come while they're still deciding, which is really separation counselling: getting clear about whether this is over, and what you'd be choosing either way. Some come in the thick of it, when the paperwork and the arguments have taken over. And some come years later, because the ending never got looked at and it's leaking into everything since. There's no wrong stage, only whether you're ready to talk about it with someone who isn't in it.

How do men cope with divorce?

Often badly, and often in silence, which is why I've made a point of working with them. A man going through divorce can lose the house, daily contact with his children and his main confidant in the same month, and then be told to keep it together for everyone else. So he does: works more, drinks more, says less, turns up to handovers looking fine. I'm a man, and I know how deep that training runs. You don't have to be falling apart to come. You have to be willing to say, for 50 minutes a week, what you've been carrying. There's more on my counselling for men page.

Do I have to talk about my ex the whole time?

No. This is about you, not them. Early on your ex will probably take up a lot of the room, because that's where the pain is, and that's fine. But the work is what the marriage and its ending have done to you: how you see yourself now, what you'd do differently, what you want the next part of your life to look like. Somewhere along the way the conversation stops being about them. That's usually when people notice they're standing a little more upright.

Can you help me decide whether to leave?

I can help you make the decision yours. I won't make it for you, and I'd be wary of anyone who offered to. What I can do is slow things down enough to separate what you want from what you're afraid of, what's changeable in the relationship from what isn't, and what you'd be choosing for the children from what you'd be choosing for yourself. If you're not sure it's over yet, my relationship counselling online page may be the better starting point, and you can move between the two; it's the same room.

What about the children?

I don't work with children, and I don't see parents together. What I can do is help you stay steady enough that the children get a parent rather than a casualty. That's most of what they need from you through a divorce, and it's the hardest thing to give when you're the one in pieces. If the practical side of parenting apart is the hardest part of your week, my co-parenting counselling page goes into that in detail.

Fees and first step

What it costs and how to start

Sessions are 50 minutes over Zoom and cost £80. I keep a small number of reduced-fee places for people on a low income; ask me on the introductory call. How everything works, including cancellations, is on my fees and concessions page.

Before anything else, we have a free introductory call. You tell me a bit about what's going on, I tell you how I work, and we both get a feel for whether it's a fit. No pressure, no obligation. If it isn't right, I'll say so and point you somewhere better.

£80 per session

50 minutes, one-to-one on Zoom
Free introductory call first
Some reduced-fee places