Sexual Abuse Therapists in Brighton & Hove

Healing from Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse is a deeply traumatic experience that can have long-lasting emotional, psychological, and physical effects. Survivors of sexual abuse may experience feelings of shame, guilt, fear, or anger, as well as struggles with self-esteem, trust, and intimacy. The trauma of sexual abuse often impacts relationships, mental health, and overall well-being.

How Counselling Supports Survivors of Sexual Abuse

Counselling provides a safe, supportive environment for survivors to process their trauma and begin healing. Therapy helps individuals work through their emotions, rebuild their sense of self-worth, and address the impact of abuse on their mental and emotional well-being. Counsellors use trauma-informed approaches to support survivors at their own pace, ensuring they feel heard and respected.

Rebuilding Trust and Relationships

Sexual abuse can make it difficult to trust others and form healthy relationships. Therapy helps survivors rebuild trust in themselves and others, working through any barriers that prevent them from experiencing connection, intimacy, or healthy boundaries.

Finding Empowerment and Recovery

Through therapy, survivors of sexual abuse learn to reclaim their sense of power and control. Counselling supports individuals in finding strength, resilience, and a path toward recovery, helping them rebuild their lives and move forward after trauma.

  • Processing trauma and emotional pain
  • Rebuilding self-worth and confidence
  • Addressing trust and relationship issues
  • Finding empowerment and recovery

Sexual Abuse specialists based in Brighton & Hove

All therapists listed are verified and based in Brighton & Hove.

Imogen Salt Brighton

Imogen Salt

Humanistic Psychotherapist

I offer one-to-one humanistic counselling, for adults and young people within the Brighton & Hove area. I prioritise face-to-face therapy, but offer online where needed. I am experienced, thoughtful, intuitive and warm.

NCPSAccredited

Alan Sparkes Hove

Alan Sparkes

Psychotherapist & Counsellor

An integrative psychotherapist with 20 years’ experience, working with shame and relational trauma, and with people who’ve had therapy before but found it didn’t reach the root of things.I often work with men who've spent years holding it together, and with women living with the effects of early or relational trauma. What brings people is usually anxiety or depression, but underneath there's something that has been there a long time: a harsh inner voice, a sense of never being quite good enough, relationship patterns that keep repeating, or simply not knowing why you feel the way you do.I don't do psychic amputation. You can't cut off the parts of yourself you don't like, or that cause you pain, without running into more problems. Therapy can help those parts be understood and integrated, so you can live more fully.I'm not a therapist who just nods and asks how that makes you feel. I'll tell you what I notice, and when it helps, I'll gently challenge you, always with care. I also work with couples, helping each partner understand what keeps happening between them.I am a UKCP-registered psychotherapist. I built and ran a multi-room therapy practice in Hove, lead peer groups for practitioners, founded Brighton Counselling Directory, and also counsel with the Terrence Higgins Trust in Brighton. Qualified therapists are welcome as clients.

BACPRegisteredUKCPAccredited

Joanna Miller Brighton

Joanna Miller

Integrative Psychotherapist

I’m an accredited psychotherapist with 15 years experience.I believe that the counselling relationship should be a creative space for both parties. It should feel comfortable and open enough to be free from anxiety and pressure in which new perspectives can emerge. In my view most mental activity takes place below the level of conscious awareness and my role is to help people gain access to it and insights from it.As an accredited therapist I am affiliated with several private healthcare companies including BUPA and AXA. I have an up-to-date DBS certificate which is registered on the update service. As well as working with individual adults, including trainee therapists, I have many years' experience working with children, couples and families. I have been a university counsellor so have a lot of experience working with students and young people and have also worked in secondary schools.  

BACPAccredited

Jaz Stroe Brighton

Jaz Stroe

Therapist / Counsellor

A Registered Member of the BACP, I've trained extensively in psychodynamic psychotherapy and counselling, working with the past, memories, dreams and the unconscious. I also volunteer with two leading mental health organisations and benefit from bi-weekly supervision to deepen my knowledge and approach.I’m also a third-culture person. I grew up in the UK with mixed Romanian and Serbian heritage. I know what it's like to perform versions of yourself while quietly feeling like someone else. Cultural identity, migration, belonging and othering are all woven into my psychology and therapeutic practice.I aim to maintain a genuinely inclusive space across culture, identity, sexual orientation, relationship structure, faith, and background. I don't work from a single script of what a person, a relationship, or a life should look like. I work within an ethic of non-harm, to self and to others, and I ask the same of the therapeutic space we share.Ultimately, I came into this work wanting to understand and aid my own mental wellbeing. I've had personal therapy for over a decade. I can only take you as far as I've gone myself, and I've gone deep. In other words, you're in safe hands, and you will be held week after week, for as long as you keep showing up.

BACPRegistered

Stephanie Fortescue Brighton

Stephanie Fortescue

Psychotherapist & Counsellor

I offer both short-term and open-ended therapy, online or face-to-face. We can talk about what might suit you best during an initial consultation.My approach is relational, trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming. I work particularly with adults who are autistic, ADHD or AuDHD, including people who have been diagnosed or identified as neurodivergent later in life. I also work with anxiety, depression, relationship and attachment difficulties, low self-esteem, emotional overwhelm and the impact of difficult or traumatic experiences.I originally trained psychodynamically, so I am interested in how our earlier experiences and relationships can shape the way we understand ourselves, relate to other people and respond to situations in the present. However, my way of working has developed considerably over the years and now draws on a wider understanding of trauma, attachment, neurodivergence, emotional regulation and the nervous system.This means we might explore patterns in your relationships, experiences from childhood, difficult emotions or beliefs you hold about yourself. But we might equally think together about sensory overwhelm, executive functioning, masking, burnout, rejection sensitivity, emotional regulation or why everyday demands can sometimes feel disproportionately difficult.I don't believe that every difficulty needs to be traced back to childhood or that distress should automatically be viewed as something within the individual that needs to be “fixed”. Sometimes understanding your brain, nervous system and environment — and recognising where you have spent years trying to function in ways that don't suit you — can be just as important.

BACPRegistered

Alison Sutcliffe Brighton

Alison Sutcliffe

Psychotherapist & EMDR Therapist

I work with high-functioning adults in Brighton who might look like they're coping on the outside but feel overwhelmed, disconnected or stuck underneath. Does this sound like you? I am an accredited, experienced psychotherapist (15 years) & my role is to help you make sense of what is happening &, through the process of our work together, free you up to live your life more fully.I am specialised in working with how our early years, as well as subsequent experiences, impact how we show up in the present: anxious/ depressed/ traumatised/ frustrated/ lost.I offer Individual Counselling, Psychotherapy, Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR) (as well as Clinical Supervision to my colleagues).We can work online as well as 30 Grand Parade, Brighton, BN2 9QA.

BACPAccredited

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