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Long Counselling Waiting Lists

Unfortunately, for many therapy services a waiting list is to be expected, but a long waiting list is unfortunate.

Whether you’re waiting for a local charity that offers couple counselling (many do not), an organisation that specialises in couple relationships (such as Relate, etc), or an NHS service that are taking on referrals from our local GPs, all of them cater their service to as many people as possible; unfortunately this can also mean that their service waiting list grows and grows while there are insufficient couple counsellors available to work with all clients.

You may be wondering what are the waiting lists like for counselling for gay couples. Although it’s your choice to wait for a generic couple counselling service, there are (hint!) relationship therapy services that specialise in gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, aromatic, trans, queer, monogamous, non-monogamous and poly relationships.

Welcome to LGBTCoupleCounselling.co.uk 👋🏻 

No Waiting List Here

Unpaid Volunteer Counsellors

If you take a look at Social Media (Twitter, Facebook etc) and business recruitment advertisers (Indeed etc) you’ll notice many counselling organisations advertising for more counsellors to work with their growing waiting lists. You’ll also notice the word “volunteer” used a lot (along with encouraging phrases such as “splendid opportunity” and “career experience” etc).

Charitable-founded organisations have based their business model on using qualified therapists who are not being paid for their time nor their skills. There’s a growing reaction in the counselling community to encourage all organisations to pay their qualified counsellors (try this Google search for “pay your counsellors” for example). Could skilled counsellors declining to work for free be having an impact on organisations’ waiting lists: i.e. insufficient qualified staff?

Of those on a waiting list waiting for mental health treatment, two-fifths of patients are forced to resort to emergency or crisis services, and nearly two thirds (64%) wait more than four weeks between their initial assessment and second appointment (ref).

Pay Your Counsellors

Avoiding Long Waiting Lists!

Fortunately, more counsellors nowadays have started their own private practices. Plus, more of those therapists are specialising in specific areas of therapy. We are avoiding the “mass capture” approach of larger organisations that are trying to be everything to everyone (hint: offering something of a diluted service).

We, as smaller private practices, focus on clients who require our specialties, and we respond quickly and efficiently.

Private counsellors, operating our own practices, still need to be fully qualified, appropriately insured, and to practise within an ethical framework (a considered list of guidelines, rather than rules, and to show benevolence towards our patients).

No Waiting?

With LGBT Couple Counselling (aka Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg)) you don’t have to be worried about the legitimacy of the counsellor; you’ve found someone who has a short waiting list, and one regularly has the ideal appointment for you and your partner(s).

How do you check that the counsellor is right for you? To answer that, I’ve published a document: How to Choose your Best Counsellor for You that’ll help you make sensible decisions.

So, with private practices focussing on areas of therapy being good for the consumer, LGBTCoupleCounselling.co.uk was set up in 2010. Originally, my counselling service focussed upon LGBT Couples in long-distance relationships using video conferencing technology (and had short waiting lists). Later, during the pandemic of 2020 onwards, I broadening my scope to embrace all British LGBT relationships across the UK.

My services continue to be available to all British LGBT couples and intimate groups, with new appointments becoming available regularly (see my Appointments & Waiting List page).

Even if I don’t seem to be the right counsellor for you, there are several private counselling practices whom I recommend who also have no waiting lists (or short ones).

Gay Couple on a Counselling Waiting List

Straight Waiting Lists – not your Only Choice!

Have you considered choosing Gay Couple Counselling from an Actual Gay Couple Counsellor?

It’s not an unusual question as several of Dean’s clients over the years hadn’t through there’d be a specialist counsellor for their particular relationship.

With over 25 years of counselling therapy experience, 14 years of which working specifically with gay & lesbian couples as a speciality, plus 17 years of actual Internet Video Therapy experience, Dean Richardson is an actual British Gay Couple Counsellor and an online therapist that LGBT/QIA+ relationships trust.

In the end… why would you be on a waiting list to a straight counselling service when you could be working with an LGBT focussed service by next week?

Dean’s professional therapy services are centred in Hampshire, but reach gay couples across the whole of the UK via video conferencing technology. You don’t have to be a gay couple seeking therapy locally within the UK to work with Dean. As long as you’re a UK citizen or live in the UK, Dean’s practice covers the therapy work we have to do together.

LGBT / QIA+ Progress Flag

Heteronormative Counselling Services

Of course you can select any counselling service you like. But gay couples regularly seek someone from their community – a professional counsellor with experienced, lived and studied – who can assist them address and repair their relationship. 

Dean focuses upon psychotherapy research created by – and for – the LGBTQ+ community.

This means that taking your couple relationship into counselling with Dean benefits from understanding of your needs, rather than from someone with a hetero-normative bias or employing hetero-assumptive training qualifications.

Online Services

Dean is available for gay couple therapy Nationwide across the UK via Internet Video (“teletherapy”). Provided that your broadband is of suitable speed and quality you’ll have no trouble accessing Dean’s services from your home, office, car or country walk.

You can use your Smartphones (as many gay couples already do – it works very well) or your office laptops.

Interested in learning more about therapy for gay couples via Internet conferencing?

LGBT Relationship Support – Available Quickly

Why go straight when there’s a local Gay Relationship Therapist right here! A therapist specialising in gay men, lesbian woman; all sorts of mixed sexuality partnerships and gender identity partners. Plus he’s within reach to UK residents.

This is not just about any relationship. It’s about your distinct relationship.

Hi 👋🏻 – I’m Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg), a fully qualified & experienced gay therapist with over 25 years counselling expertise (14 years in relationship counselling & 17 years in telecounselling Zoom, Skype etc). 👍🏻

TL;DR: as a private practice, I regularly have appointments you can choose from right away. So let’s get you started on some information about my therapy services… then we can talk:-

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Does a Counsellor’s Sexuality / Gender-Identity Matter?

Dean understands the unique needs and challenges that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender couples and polyamorous groups face in a heteronormative society. Furthermore, in therapy, he will concentrate on your relationship needs (rather than try to apply a kind of magical “standard” for happy couples).

His goal is to become redundant; literally! Unlike some therapists who suggest future “top-up” sessions being booked after your work is completed, with Dean when you no longer require his services you can say goodbye for good (or “for now” if you prefer: it’s up to you). This means that you’ll leave couple counselling with ways to manage your relationship both now and in the future.

Dean employs a therapeutic approach with LGBT/QIA+ relationships (aka systemic neutrality) that means there doesn’t need to be more than one counsellor in the room with you, neither. (Yes, some services engage your relationship with two counsellor, simultaneously).

Plus, bonus: Dean is quite down-to-earth and “non-counselley”. He can use swearing/blue language and everything (meaning: he’s quite happy to use language & colloquialisms that you recognise in your everyday life).

This can greatly help you to become at-ease with the counselling process, and with Dean.

Do LGBT/QIA+ prefer a Gay Couple Counsellor?

Is it necessary for a gay or lesbian couple to choose a gay/lesbian couple counsellor, or is it sufficient for the counsellor to be aware of the couple’s sexual and/or gender identification…?

About Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg)

You could choose any couple / group counsellor…

Given that this will be the most intimate and vulnerable you could feel alongside your partner(s), you would want a skilled professional whose experience and specialism you could trust; whose focus would be upon your distinct relationship. Your couple, throuple or group relationship will be in good hands with Dean. He works from Great Britain, is Independent of "box 'em/shift 'em" therapy services, and identifies as a gay couple counsellor. He's also easily payable in pounds sterling! Dean already had an impressive 17 years actual video "webcam" experience - way before the first British emergency began (when suddenly many counsellors added a Video option to their portfolio, having not practised so previously! 🤔).

What makes Dean Distinct

  • Dean is sensitive and effective to your sexuality / gender-identity and intimate ways of relating to each other. You'll discover quickly that Dean is an informed member of your own community.
  • Dean demonstrates adept skills with lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, fluid, mixed sexuality and same-or-mixed gender relationships having over 25 years' experience as a counsellor.
  • Dean avoids taking a the role of "all-knowing expert" (whether requested or projected onto him by the clients). "Experts" tell you what to do, do not learn very well from others, and struggle to adapt to new situations. A couple counsellor must be curious, adaptive, and ask questions from a "not knowing" position so that the relationship in counselling benefits from re-examination.
  • Dean speaks plain English (and can swear like a virtuoso if you like, or not at all if you prefer). He works cooperatively with your relationship (no unnecessary silence, or just "hmms...").
  • Dean was originally accredited by his first professional body 15 years ago; he is now an accredited registrant with The National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society. Accreditation is a valued recognition of a counsellor's substantial experience. Dean is also a member of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Union of Great Britain.
  • Dean is a British Counsellor working from the South of England. Unlike other counselling services operating from abroad Dean is registered, accredited, insured & supervised from within England (not from abroad).

If any of this resonates with you and your partner(s), you should probably meet with the Gay Relationship Counsellor: Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg) via Zoom, Skype, Whatsapp and other secure, reliable video conferencing media.

Dean focuses on LGBT/QIA+ relationships as a specialty in therapy. He works with individuals, couples and small groups. Plus, he's qualified to a postgraduate level (Chichester PG Diploma in Psychodynamic / Systemic Couple Counselling, IGA National Foundation in Group Counselling), and works as a private practice counsellor employing 25+ years experience*.

(*Very Important: not all counsellors have such specific skills for working with couples nor groups. Those who are initially trained to use common "Individual" Counselling skills have no experience in working therapeutically with relationships. Such counsellors may try, perhaps out of misplaced goodwill, to employ "individual" techniques (multiplied by 2) but the couple or group will find that the approach is ineffective. Simply put: it's the wrong approach; your relationship is not part of the counsellor's primary theoretical framework. Remember always to ask your potential counsellor: "what qualifies you to work with our relationship?" and trust your instincts based on what you hear.

MNPCS Accredited Registrant Counsellor
Member of the British Psychotherapy and Counselling Union
Location Image+44-56-0366-3067£30-£130
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Got a Question about LGBT/QIA+ Counselling?

Come and ask... whatever question you have about couple and/or group counselling for gay, lesbian, bisexual, aromatic, asexual and mixed-orientation relationships you might have, get in touch today to discuss your needs…

Private Counselling Services Designed for the LGBTQ+ Community. Available Exclusively to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, ASexual, ARomantic, Mixed & Queer Couples, and Established Polyamorous Groups - serving the UK Nationwide over Zoom & Skype, plus locations in and around central Havant, Petersfield to Waterlooville, Cosham to Portsmouth & Southsea, Southampton to Chichester, Fareham to Gosport, Hayling Island, Emsworth, Westbourne, Rowland's Castle, stretching westwards to Bournemouth, eastwards towards Brighton & Hove and northwards towards Liverpool, Manchester and Hull. For local residents anywhere in between, across the whole UK, and regularly further afield abroad!