Click Here For one-to-one counselling or psychotherapy
Click Here For low-cost options
Click Here For couples, families & children
Click Here For group therapy
Click Here For assistance in finding the right person / option for you
Click Here To choose your own practitioner
Click Here For information on different therapy options
Assistance in finding the right person or option
Assessment and Referral Appointments
The purpose of this session is to help you find the right therapist and approach to therapy for you.
Finding the right therapist in Oxfordshire to fit with you and what you are wanting to achieve in counselling/therapy is the most important factor that determines how beneficial the process might be.
Your Appointment
An initial assessment & referral appointment takes about one hour.
Let us know if you would like to arrange an appointment, and details of your availability.
The fee for this appointment is from a minimum of £45 - £80 (£60 - £80 for couples). The fee you pay will be the maximum of whatever (per session) limit you give us to help you find your therapist. This is to allow people that need to to access the low-cost OTS service. You can find information on the cost of sessions in the next section.
Click Here To apply for an assessment appointment
How quickly will I be seen?
At present we can usually see you for an assessment within a week. There may need to be a wait before a suitable practitioner is available however. We try to keep this wait as short as possible, but it all depends on several factors:
Fees for Sessions
Low-Cost Service Fees
Fees for this service are in the range of £20-£45 per session. This service is staffed by trainees in supervision with us, newly qualified practitioners building their practices and occasionally by experienced practitioners with a lower fee place available.
Individual Counselling & Psychotherapy Fees
This is dependant on the practitioner. In Oxfordshire the average cost of therapy with an experienced practitioner is around £55 per session, and the range is generally from £45 - £90 per session.
Couples Therapy Fees
Couples Therapy is generally charged at a higher rate than individual sessions, from £60 - £90 per hour session.
Group Therapy
Group therapy is currently charged on a sliding scale from £20 - £45 per session. A session last for up to 2 1/2 hours.
Low-Cost Options
There are two main low-cost options:
Group Therapy
For many people this is as effective as individual therapy. Once you have gotten over the initial anxiety (common for most people) you will realise how effective and supportive it can be. You can read more about group therapy here on the main OTS website.
Low-cost Service
This service is mainly staffed by trainees on placement with us. The fees for this service help them to cover the cost of room rental and supervision. Toward the higher end of this scale, there can be places available with newly qualified practitioners who are still building the practice, as well as experienced professionals who offer some low cost work. Demand for this service can be high, and there may be a wait depending on factors explained here .
Couples Therapy / Counselling
If couples therapy, is to be of use to you, it often requires some time, commitment and cost, so it is important to find the right person. Exploring if couples therapy is the right course for you to take, and who you might work well with are the main purposes of an initial assessment.
In finding you the right person, there are many things to consider. Practicalities such as your availability and personal affordability need to be established, as well as whether you are prepared to travel for the right therapist, who may or may not be at the OTS-Witney Therapy Centre.
All people (and couples) are different, and the relationship you have with your counsellor is seen by most as the most important element in achieving a successful outcome. Different practitioners work in different ways, and have different personalities. These differences can be important in working with you as individuals. So whilst an expert car mechanic might be able to work with many different cars, it is not the same with counselling.
Additionally, some couples can often benefit from working on their own for a while before starting couples therapy, and an assessment can explore this also.
The assessment appointment will take about one hour, and is charged at £55 payable by cash or cheque. Couples therapy is generally charged at between £60 and £90 per one-hour session depending on the practitioner, and is generally either weekly or fortnightly. If it is fortnightly it often arrange for a 90 minute session to allow more space. Individual therapy is available from £20.
Click here to enquire
Family Therapy
Currently, most family therapists in Oxfordshire work within the NHS, so you maybe able to get a referral through your GP. We may be able to offer family therapy if all members are over 18. Please feel free to enquire.
Click here to enquire
Please choose from the following options...
Click Here For Room Hire
Click Here To join OTS-Witney or OTS-Oxford
Click Here For Supervision & Training
Click Here For Practitioner Events
Reasons why people contact us
People want to find a counsellor or a psychotherapist for many different reasons. Some want help with specific emotional problems such as depression, loneliness or anxiety, or they may wish to generally feel more alive. Some may have difficulty coming to terms with a traumatic or painful personal history. Others may feel stuck in recurring patterns that prevent them from feeling fulfilled, from connecting with others, or from finding meaning in their lives.
Sometimes people wish to find a counsellor or a therapist for help during a crisis, such as the end of a relationship, bereavement, divorce, redundancy resulting in loss of direction in life or other traumatic event such as rape, abortion or miscarriage.
Many of our clients tell us they contacted the OTS-Witney Therapy Centre in order to:
About the OTS-Witney Therapy Centre
The OTS-Witney Therapy Centre opened in 2004 to provide beautiful low-cost therapy room hire in Witney for psychotherapists, counsellors and complementary therapists, and to provide a range of counselling and psychotherapy services to the general public. We ensure all practitioners are fully qualified and insured.
Our Therapy Centre is in central Witney, just around the corner from the main bus stops at the top of the High Street. So we are well placed for people travelling from Abingdon, Burford, Bampton, Carterton, Eynsham, Faringdon, Oxford, Wantage and other surrounding towns and villages.
If you want assistance with the huge range of therapy options - approaches and types that are available, please feel free to call Justin Smith on 07977 126330, or email him here.
The PsychoEducational Blog
Welcome to our blog - To help develop our understanding of human nature and the challenge of changing how life is. We will add new thinking to this blog at the beginning of each month so you can check back for the next instalment!
Jan 2025: The Brain, the Nervous System & Change - part 1.
Change is sometimes easy to make - If we get tired of watching the ITV news, we can give the BBC a go. But most change that we seek to address (often through therapy) has varying degrees of difficulty, as you probably know. There are many complex reasons for this, and many different theories (hundreds in fact) that the psychological professions have come up with to try to understand why and what can help overcome the difficulty. All these theories hold some value and some truth, but just like with the laws of physics and ideas in economics, none of them are complete.
You have possibly come across the idea that the human brain is the most complex structure that we know of in the universe. In recent years neuroscientists have understood more to confirm this reality. We now know, that we are born with around 86 billion neurons in our brain, which then connect with each other on multiple levels as we experience life and develop an understanding for how the world works. These connections form a neural network, with more synaptic connections between the neurons than there are stars in the universe. And all this by the age of 5.
So, when people come seeking counselling and psychotherapy at our Oxford & Witney centres, sometimes they don't always appreciate why change can be so difficult. But, when we think about the complexity of the brain which I have just outlined, which forms alongside our nervous system during the first years of life, you begin to appreciate why neuroscientist are now confirming what Freud was theorising about 120 years ago, that we are predominantly 'unconscious'.
More on this next month...
Feb 2025: The Brain, the Nervous System & Change - part 2.
Last month, we referenced the neuroscience which now appreciates that the vast majority of the structure of your brain and nervous system as you read this text formed by the age of 5. But if we asked you to write a book about all you could remember of those first 5-years, how big a book could you write? Most people, when we ask them this question would answer with, a page or two at most; with some people saying they have no memory of this brain and nervous system forming time at all.
There is a concept called ‘Neuroplasticity’, which refers to the ability of the brain to change through further experiences beyond the age of 5, and throughout life. We know that with new information for example, our opinions can change. Some opinions are however, more resilient than others. A good example would be with voting in general elections. ‘Floating Voters’ are known as such because their vote changes from one election to another. For others, they would never vote anything other than conservative, or labour. Why is there this difference between floating and committed voters?
For the purpose of this blog, let us imagine that a client came to therapy because they were a fixed voter, and wanted to become a floating voter (or vice versa), and they wanted us to help them with this problem. At this point, we don’t need to develop an understanding of why someone would have a problem like this - after all, it is often the case that we don’t understand the problems other people have at all. We are really just fleshing out some of the landscape as to why change might be difficult, and how we might begin to think about it with this voting client. So, between now and next month’s blog, you might consider reasons why some people are floating voters and some are not, and what the implications are for the therapist they want help from.
