Michael Harland, BACP

Michael Harland is a BACP counsellor in the United Kingdom with five years of clinical experience. He works with people facing stress, anxiety, depression, trauma and abuse, ADHD, addictions and relationship and family issues, including blended family concerns.

He favours depth work that gives space to feeling rather than focusing only on thoughts. That means talking is used to reach emotions beneath everyday defences. Michael also notes situations where digging into deep feeling is not appropriate, such as during a current crisis, non–drug-induced psychosis, or very severe trauma.

In those situations he recommends approaches that strengthen coping and stabilise distress instead of depth work. He mentions cognitive behavioural therapy as an alternative for people in crisis or with psychosis, and suggests seeking therapists who use those methods when needed.

In routine work he draws on psychodynamic ideas and mindfulness to help people notice patterns, link feelings to past experience, and develop more steady ways of responding. Sessions are conversational and focused on understanding what keeps a problem going, then testing different ways of being.

Michael supports people dealing with grief, intimacy concerns, parenting strain, sleep and eating problems, and the stresses that come with life change. He also lists additional focus areas such as attachment, adoption and foster care, autism and blended family issues. He works in English and accepts international clients.