Lydia Chapman, BACP

Lydia Chapman is a counsellor with nine years of experience helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression and the fallout from trauma and abuse. She supports those facing relationship and family concerns, grief, addiction, intimacy difficulties, eating and sleeping problems, and the strain of life changes. Lydia works with individuals who are coping with career pressures and caring responsibilities, and with a wide range of related struggles such as abandonment, attachment issues and body image concerns.

Her style is warm and person-centred. Lydia believes the relationship between counsellor and client is the central part of change. Sessions aim to be non-judgemental, respectful and focused on what matters most to the person in front of her. She draws on practical conversations rather than jargon, helping people try small changes between sessions.

Lydia uses an integrated approach. She blends client-centred work with attachment-focused ideas and cognitive behavioural techniques to tackle unhelpful thoughts and patterns. Emotion-focused and existential perspectives may be used to examine feelings, meaning and life transitions when helpful.

She has worked in one-to-one and group settings and in a variety of client-facing roles within charities. Lydia holds BACP accreditation, a Diploma in Counselling and a BSc (Hons) in therapeutic counselling and supervision, and she is a mental health first aider.

Lydia offers therapy remotely to people across the world and can also meet face to face in her local area. To start, people can book a place and talk about what they want to address and how sessions might fit into their life.

How Lydia's approaches translate to online therapy

Lydia uses attachment-based ideas to look at how early relationships shape current patterns. This helps people who struggle with trust, closeness and repeating relationship difficulties. She also uses client-centred work, which focuses on understanding the person without judgment and helping them find their own solutions. Cognitive behavioural techniques are applied to spot and shift unhelpful thoughts and behaviours, useful for anxiety, low mood and stress.

Finding the right mix of approaches is a collaborative process. Lydia will discuss goals and preferences with each person and adapt her methods as therapy progresses. Together they decide what feels most helpful and practical for the issues being faced.

Online therapy gives practical flexibility. Video calls provide a face-to-face feeling when seeing non-verbal cues matters. Phone sessions can be easier when lower bandwidth or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging suit people who prefer written reflection or want brief, on-the-go contact. These options make it simpler to fit therapy around work, caring duties and travel while keeping the focus on the work itself.