No single therapy fits every person, every problem, every moment. Integrative counselling means I'm trained in several approaches and bring the parts that suit you — the practical CBT-style tools, the body-based trauma work, the slower person-centred listening — rather than asking you to fit into one model. Most people don't arrive needing "a method"; they arrive needing to be properly understood, and then helped to move.
I'm Keeley Taverner, a Psychotherapist, BACP Accredited. My core training is in psychotherapy at The Metanoia Institute (2012), with additional accredited training in CBT, ACT, EMDR, person-centred therapy, NLP and trauma-focused work. After 14 years in private practice as an integrative therapist — and 18 years in mental health overall, including over a decade in HMP working with people who carried complex, undiagnosed personality difficulties — I've earned the right to mix these approaches honestly. I won't pretend to do something I'm not trained in.
What is integrative therapy?
There's a difference between eclectic ("a bit of this, a bit of that") and integrative (a coherent, principled blending of approaches that holds together as one therapy). Integrative practice begins with a strong base — for me, that's the person-centred relationship — and brings in other modalities where they earn their place.
The approaches I draw on, in plain English: CBT for working with thinking and behaviour patterns; ACT for accepting difficult feelings and committing to what matters to you; EMDR for processing trauma the talking brain can't reach; person-centred therapy for the warm, non-directive base that holds everything else; and trauma-focused work for the body-side of recovery.
What that looks like in your therapy is simple: we talk in plain English about what you're stuck with, agree what would help, and the approach flexes as the work moves.
Is integrative counselling or therapy right for you?
Integrative work is especially useful when your situation doesn't sit neatly under one heading:
- You've tried one type of therapy (e.g. CBT) and felt something was missing
- You want practical tools and a space to be heard properly
- Anxiety, low mood, trauma and relationship patterns are tangled together
- You're recovering from a toxic or controlling relationship and need both grounding tools and slower understanding
- You're not in crisis — you just want therapy that fits a real life and a real schedule
- You've been told "we can only offer six sessions" before and need something less boxed in
You don't have to know which approach you need. That's literally my job — to bring the parts that help, in the right order, and to be honest about what's working.
How an integrative approach works in practice
Sessions are warm and conversational — no whiteboards, no manualised scripts. What changes session-to-session is the texture:
- A week the priority is being heard — person-centred listening, slower pace, no agenda.
- A week the priority is a stuck thought loop — CBT-style mapping, behavioural experiments, small between-session steps.
- A week the priority is a body that won't settle — somatic, ACT and trauma-focused tools to bring the nervous system down.
- A week the priority is a memory that's not been processed — EMDR or other trauma work, at a pace you set.
You're never locked into one method. If something isn't working, we change it — together, in plain English.
Therapy should fit you, not the other way around. The method is in service of the person sitting in front of me — never the other way round.
Where integrative counselling tends to help most
This is the way I work across the whole practice. The areas it tends to be most useful are: narcissistic abuse recovery, toxic-relationship counselling, anxiety and panic, depression, trauma and PTSD, rebuilding confidence, and grief — all situations where one approach alone usually isn't enough.
Integrative counsellor in Marlow, Buckinghamshire & online
I see clients in person at The Courtyard, 60 Station Road, Marlow SL7 1NX, and via secure video across the UK. If you're searching for an integrative counsellor near me in Marlow or the wider Buckinghamshire area, sessions are £250 and completely confidential.
The simplest first step is a free 30-minute consultation — a chance to describe what's going on and see how integrative therapy might fit. No pressure to book further.
