Syed Ali

The decision to come to counselling and seek help is hugely personal. Well done for coming this far. I will offer you a safe, non-judgmental and held space where you can work through whatever it is you feel is troubling you.

I can work with you, either long or short-term, on the issues you are facing. I offer one-to-one counselling sessions in rooms across South Devon and online.

I am a British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy member and am on the Â鶹ԭ´´'s register of approved practitioners. I also hold an Advanced Diploma in Integrative Counselling from the Dartmoor Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy, an Advanced Practitioner in Substance Misuse qualification from Broadreach House, Plymouth as well as a Certificate in Counselling from the Iron Mill Centre, Exeter.

I am also one of the first recovery coaches in the UK to complete the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery training and received funding from Exeter Drugs Project to complete this, while I worked in a custodial setting in an abstinence based therapeutic community for recovery from drug addiction. I was also recognised by Phoenix Futures with a special award for the therapeutic work I did to promote and facilitate recovery within prisons.

The explosion of mobile technology and social media means there is also a bespoke service of Zoom and telephone therapy available for people wherever they are in the world. This is one of the most exciting therapeutic development of recent times

I am a British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy member and am on the Â鶹ԭ´´'s register of approved practitioners. I also hold an Advanced Diploma in Integrative Counselling from the Dartmoor Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy, an Advanced Practitioner in Substance Misuse qualification from Broadreach House, Plymouth as well as a Certificate in Counselling from the Iron Mill Centre, Exeter. I am also one of the first recovery coaches in the UK to complete the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery training. I also have completed a Post Graduate Diploma in CBTp for Psychosis and Bi-polar disorder (Hi-IAPT) at Exeter University in 2018

I have been working as a therapist since 2011, predominantly in the field of addiction and have experience of working in community, residential and custodial rehabilitation centres, providing a mix of both one to one and group therapy. I have been working in private practice since 2012 and am also a supervisor for the Dartmoor Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy and in Private Practice.

Since 2016 I have been working within specialist children’s mental health services in the South West of England as a clinical lead/ therapist as part of a developmental trauma clinic, focussing on attachment, mentalisation and reparative therapeutic relationships for children and their families.

I believe the therapeutic relationship is the primary factor in change, and by understanding how things feel and are for you, your awareness can be increased, allowing you to create change in your life- self actualisation. 

I am particularly interested in how our early attachments influence and shape our current relationships; as well as how trauma, loss, addiction and suffering lead to developing ways of being and relating to ourselves and others, that often although protective, often no longer help us. I am also interested in death anxiety, ideas of power, race, culture, identity and wider systemic thinking. 

I value the work of Judith Herman, Dr Bruce Perry, Irving Yalom, Dr Gabor Mate, Martin Buber, Carl Rogers, James Hollis and Resmaa Menakeem. 

I offer 50 minute sessions to explore, understand the events that have brought you to therapy and seek something more for yourself.