Michael Purvis, BACP

Michael Purvis is a counsellor with three years' experience and a BACP registration. He believes counselling can help people work through difficult experiences and make meaningful changes. He aims to create a calm, direct space where thoughts and feelings are talked through without jargon.

He commonly supports people dealing with anxiety, stress and symptoms such as panic attacks, phobias and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. He also works with low mood and depression linked to life changes like retirement, redundancy or long-term illness. Relationship concerns, trouble socialising and difficulties building connections are within his focus too.

Michael uses several practical approaches in sessions, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, alongside attachment-informed and client-centred ways of working. These methods are used to help people notice unhelpful patterns, try new responses and set achievable goals. He also offers coaching-style support for career, health and work-life balance aims.

Sessions tend to be conversational and goal-oriented. Michael helps people break problems into manageable steps and test small changes between meetings. He encourages straightforward reflection and practical tools rather than lengthy theory.

People come to him hoping to reduce anxiety, rebuild confidence or find clearer direction. He asks simple questions about daily life and priorities, then works collaboratively to plan what might help next.

Approaches to online therapy and how they help

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, often called ACT, helps people notice difficult thoughts without fighting them and focus on actions that match their values. It can be useful for anxiety, low mood and for people who feel stuck in unhelpful habits.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT, looks at links between thoughts, feelings and behaviours and teaches practical steps to change them. It is often used for panic, phobias and stress by giving simple techniques to practise between sessions.

Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on how early relationships shape current patterns and helps people try new ways of relating and regulating emotion. This approach is useful for people who struggle with closeness, trust or recurrent relationship problems.

Finding the right approach is part of therapy. The therapist will work collaboratively to match methods to a person’s goals, needs and preferences. That might mean combining elements from different approaches over time and checking in about what feels useful.

Practical benefits of online therapy include fitting sessions into a busy week and reducing travel. Because specific session formats were not listed in the biography, confirm what is offered before booking. Online work can make it easier to keep appointments around work, health or family commitments and to try short check-ins or longer conversations depending on what suits daily life.