Abi Spence, UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist

Abi Spence

York YO31
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Abi Spence, UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist

Abi Spence

York YO31
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My Approach

I am an integrative psychotherapist working with adults (21+) on a one-to-one basis. I specialise in working with adults affected by early relational experiences, including boarding school, family dynamics, and fertility challenges.

My approach draws on person-centred, relational and psychodynamic thinking. This means we pay attention not only to your past experiences, but also to what’s happening in the present moment—between us and in your wider life. However, You are the expert on your own experience.

My role is to work alongside you in understanding patterns, processing difficult emotions, and finding a way forward that feels more manageable and authentic.

Before training as a psychotherapist, I worked in marketing and PR. I understand the pressures of high-performing environments—the expectation to hold things together, to excel, and to make it all look effortless.

I offer a free 25-minute introductory session so you can get a sense of whether working together feels right.

I offer short term work (6-12 sessions) longer term (6 months to a year or longer) I work online and in-person, in a therapy room setting and outdoor therapy in nature. For 50 minutes, one day a week, you can be present and alive to your thoughts, feelings, memories and sensations in a way that life may prevent you from being.

About Me

Are you feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or stuck in patterns that are hard to understand or change?

Therapy offers a space to slow things down, gain clarity, and begin to relate to yourself and others differently.

Alongside concerns such as anxiety, depression, burnout and relationship difficulties, I work with adults who are:

struggling in close relationships, despite wanting connection
wrestling with disquieting emotions around your boarding school experiences
caught in painful or complicated sibling dynamics
navigating the emotional strain of fertility challenges, motherhood or IVF

These experiences can be difficult to talk about, especially when others don’t fully understand, or when you feel you “should” be coping.

I work with

  • Individuals
  • Private healthcare referrals

Special Interests

Like all UKCP registered psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors I can work with a wide range of issues, but here are some areas in which I have a special interest or additional experience.

Anxiety can be specific (post partum depression and hypervigilance, death, health) or general dis-ease. In whatever way you might experience anxiety, it can severely impact the way you are able to appreciate and enjoy life. Therapy gives you the opportunity to explore what is creating the anxious feelings and gain some clarity and insight which can help assuage the symptoms.
Our family is our first environment. Even before we have visual memories, as babies we were already navigating our family system, putting in place a pattern of connection-seeking that stays with us throughout the life span, and informs so much of who we are in relationship. Whatever your experience of family has been; happy, connected, cut short, traumatic, abusive or neglectful, a space to explore parental and sibling bonds can assist those (and other) relationships to evolve.
Gender is crucial part of our intersectionality. Intersectionality is the intellectual framework for understanding how various aspects of individual identity interact. Problematic gender norms and socio-cultural expectations for cis-gender individuals, or issues arising for those who identify as a transgender, gender expansive or non binary (abuse, dysphoria) can contribute to anxiety, depression and minority stress. Therapy can provide a safe space to explore your gender, and/or elationships with orhers as your gender identity evolves.
There is deep (and often secret) pain, longing, envy and shame in the struggle to create or grow a family. Whether you are going through fertility treatment, have experienced the intense grief of miscarriage or the loss of the future you assumed you were going to have, psychotherapy can provide another place to explore complex experiences and feelings that often struggle for an outlet in conversations with family and friends.
What is traumatic is deeply personal; abuse, neglect, discrimination, intergenerational trauma (family history) or any event where you feel intense fear, threat, humiliation, rejection, powerlessness or invalidation. Sometimes we can react in a traumatised way without fully knowing what caused the reaction. Aspects of our lives which we would prefer to bury and forget can emerge in ways that become problematic. In therapy, we work towards understanding the affect of original trauma, how it impacts our present, and turn "reactions" into responses. This can be especially true of those who experienced a boarding school childhood.

Types of Therapies Offered

  • Integrative Psychotherapist

What I can help with

  • Abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Bereavement
  • Bullying
  • Cultural Issues
  • Depression
  • Divorce
  • Employment Difficulties
  • Family
  • Gender
  • Identity Problems
  • Infertility
  • Online Counselling
  • Parents
  • Physical Abuse
  • Relationships
  • Separation
  • Sexual Abuse
  • Sexuality
  • Stress
  • Transgender
  • Trauma

Types of sessions

  • Face to Face - Long Term
  • Face to Face - Short Term
  • Online Therapy

York Office

Room 4
Unit 2
Miller's Yard
York YO31 7EB
United Kingdom (UK)

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Cost:

£70.00 per outdoor, online or in-person session

UKCP College

  • Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy College (HIPC)
Abi Spence

Abi Spence

York YO31

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