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

Counselling for Men — A Space You Don't Have to Perform In

You don't have to pretend everything is okay here. I'm Brian Sheppard, a clinical psychotherapist and mental health specialist, UKCP registered, with over 25 years in mental health, and most of the men I see arrive saying some version of the same thing: I can't think straight, I can't see the wood for the trees, and I don't know who to say it to. This page is for you.

Book a free introductory call Message me on WhatsApp

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

Does this sound familiar?

Who this is for

Men in their thirties to sixties, mostly, though age matters less than what's going on. You might recognise some of this:

Pressure at work or at home that never lets up, and a sense that you're losing your grip on it
Being falsely accused at work of something that wasn't your fault, and carrying it on your own
A relationship that's breaking down, or has ended, and you don't know how to be now
Divorce, separation, and the fight to stay a good dad while you co-parent with someone you can't talk to
Anger that arrives out of nowhere, or a flatness that won't lift
Questions about your sexuality or your identity that you've never said out loud
Feeling caught between two worlds — connected to where you came from, yet changed by where you built your life. You belong to both places, and yet neither quite feels like home
Drinking, scrolling or working more than you'd like, because it's easier than sitting with how you feel
Lying awake with too much in your head and no one to tell it to
Simply not feeling like yourself, and being tired of pretending you do

None of this makes you weak, and none of it needs to reach crisis point before it counts. If it's been on your mind for a while, that's reason enough.

Let's talk it through

My approach

How I work with men

Men are told to open up, then given nowhere safe to do it. Talk to your partner and it turns into an argument. Talk to your mates and someone changes the subject. Talk to no one and it comes out sideways, as anger, silence or a drink too many. Counselling is one hour a week where none of that applies.

I'm a person-centred psychotherapist, which in plain English means the session follows you. No worksheet, no homework, no forms to fill in before you've even spoken. You say what's on your mind, however messy, and I listen properly. I'll ask the questions nobody else asks. If I spot a pattern, I'll name it. If you're dodging something, I'll bring us back to it, gently. And I won't flinch: I spent years as a mental health nurse before I trained as a psychotherapist, so there's very little you can tell me that I haven't heard before.

I'm also a man, and a Black man, and I know from the inside how much of what we carry we were taught never to mention. You don't have to explain that part. You don't have to be articulate, or calm, or sure what you want to say. You just have to turn up.

Everything is online, over Zoom, for 50 minutes at a time. Plenty of men talk to me from the car in a quiet car park, or from the office after everyone else has gone home. Anywhere you can be honest and not overheard works.

Questions I'm often asked

Why is it so hard for men to ask for help?

Because most of us were trained out of it early. Be strong. Don't make a fuss. Sort it yourself. By your thirties or forties that training has become a reflex, and the first time you seriously need help it can feel like admitting something has gone badly wrong with you.

It hasn't. What's gone wrong is that you've been carrying it alone. Booking a call isn't the moment you fall apart. It's the moment you stop pretending you can do everything on your own.

What do we actually talk about?

Whatever you bring. In practice, the first few sessions are usually about what's happening now: the relationship, the job, the divorce, the thing that tipped you into looking for a therapist. From there we go wherever the thread leads, which is often further back than you expect. How you learned to handle feelings. What you were shown about being a man. The moments that shaped how you cope.

You set the pace, and nothing is off limits. Some weeks you'll talk for fifty minutes without stopping. Some weeks you'll sit with something hard and say very little. Both are useful.

Do I need to be in crisis to see a therapist?

No. Most men wait until things are on fire before they pick up the phone, and by then there's a lot more to untangle. You're allowed to come because you're stuck, or flat, or you keep having the same argument, or you simply want someone outside your life to think it through with.

If you are in crisis right now, please use the numbers at the bottom of this page first. I'm not an emergency service, and I'd rather you were safe.

Will you tell me what to do?

Not usually, and you'd probably ignore me if I did. What I'll do is help you hear yourself clearly enough that the next step becomes obvious to you. That's different from advice, and it lasts longer. If you ask me straight for my honest view, you'll get it.

Is talking to a male therapist different?

For some men it is. Knowing the person opposite has stood where you're standing can make the first honest sentence easier to say. It isn't essential, and plenty of men do good work with women therapists. But if you've held back from therapy because you couldn't picture yourself telling a stranger any of this, a male therapist who has spent his working life hearing exactly these things may be the difference.

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