Grace Symphony, BACP

Grace Symphony is a humanistic counsellor who describes her work as warm and accepting. She uses a person-centred foundation to create a space where people can talk about stress, anxiety, trauma, depression and changes in life. Grace is registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, BACP, and brings a practical, down-to-earth approach to sessions.

She often blends person-centred listening with other useful models. Transactional analysis is used to help people see how early life patterns can shape current thinking. Gestalt ideas support noticing what is happening in the present and where someone might be getting stuck.

Grace also draws on a long career in healthcare. She worked for 40 years as a pharmacist, including experience in psychiatry and mental health, and this background informs how she talks about medication and care choices without offering medical advice. Her time living and working in Africa for 20 years has shaped her awareness of cultural differences and how they matter in therapy.

Sessions focus on helping people understand feelings like abandonment, shame, or guilt, and on practical coping with chronic illness, pain, cancer, fertility and life transitions. She aims to help people find clearer ways of relating to themselves and others and to build calmer responses to stressful situations.

Grace invites people to explore difficult thoughts and feelings at a pace that suits them. The work is collaborative and paced to each person’s needs, emphasising self-discovery and steps towards feeling steadier in everyday life.

How humanistic approaches translate to online therapy

Grace works from a humanistic, person-centred base which means sessions aim to centre the person’s experience and priorities. Person-centred work focuses on empathic listening, reflecting what someone says, and helping them find their own solutions; it is often used for stress, anxiety, low mood and life changes.

She also uses transactional analysis to help people spot repeating relationship or thinking patterns that come from earlier life stages. That approach offers simple tools to name unhelpful scripts and consider new responses. Gestalt-informed ideas are used to bring attention to present-moment feelings and bodily sense, which can help when someone feels stuck or dissociated.

Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, preferences and what feels helpful, and then adapt techniques together in a collaborative way. The choice of methods can change as the work progresses.

The biography does not specify which online formats are offered, so please confirm available session formats before booking. Online counselling can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life, save travel time and allow check-ins during a lunch break or after work. Different ways of meeting can also support people who need a shorter check-in or who prefer not to be on camera at every session.