Paula Bantick-Ward, BACP

Paula Bantick-Ward is a BACP counsellor with eight years' experience offering approachable, practical help. She aims to make counselling accessible and affordable so people can get support when life feels overwhelming. Paula offers both individual and couple work and uses straightforward language to help clients make sense of their experience.

She listens without judgement and keeps sessions genuine and non-directive. Paula works in a person-centred way, using empathy to help people find their own answers and build on what matters to them. She also draws on tools from cognitive behavioural therapy and solution-focused brief work to offer clear steps when needed.

Paula helps people with stress, anxiety, depression, grief and relationship difficulties. Other areas she supports include addictions, eating and intimacy-related issues, anger, low self-esteem and coping with life changes. She also works with concerns such as abandonment, attachment issues, caregiver stress, cancer-related worries and aging and geriatric issues.

Her sessions may include creative options like metaphor, journaling or creative writing when that fits a client's style. Paula says the work is collaborative - she listens, reflects and offers techniques people can try between sessions. She is based in the United Kingdom and works with English-speaking clients, including those outside the UK.

To begin, people use the Start Therapy button, complete a short matching questionnaire and then schedule according to availability. Fees vary by location and use a subscription model that can be cancelled at any time.

How Paula’s approaches work in online therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, encourages people to notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them and to take values-led action. It can help with anxiety, low mood and coping with life changes. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships shape current patterns and helps people understand and change how they connect with others. This can be useful for relationship difficulties and attachment issues.

Paula takes a collaborative approach to choosing methods. She will talk with each person about their goals and preferences and together decide which approaches to try. The process is flexible, and practical techniques can be introduced gradually based on what works for the individual.

The biography notes Paula offers online and telephone sessions, so confirm the precise formats before booking. Online work can make it easier to fit counselling into a busy week and cut travel time. Telephone sessions may suit shorter check-ins or times when video is not convenient. In either case Paula may suggest simple homework such as journaling or creative exercises to use between sessions and will adapt activities to suit how the person prefers to work.