About Debra
Debra "Debs" Barritt is a counsellor with fifteen years of experience who focuses on helping people through stressful and painful life moments. She holds a BACP accreditation, and brings a down-to-earth, compassionate approach to sessions. Debs draws on decades of work in bereavement and community settings to support people in finding ways to cope.
She began her caring pathway after a difficult childhood and time at boarding school for children labelled as maladjusted.
Background and approach
That personal history led her to study youth work at Brunel University and to a long career supporting others. Her early counselling work started in a hospice bereavement service where small acts of presence felt deeply important. Debs uses person-centred values alongside practical tools from cognitive behavioural approaches and parts work to help people manage anxiety, depression, grief and relationship strain.
She aims to create space for people to speak honestly and to find steps they can try between sessions. Sessions are straightforward and focused on what a person wants to change or understand. Her practice covers a wide range of concerns including stress, phobias, addiction, trauma and parenting-related strain.
She also supports people dealing with loss, caregiver stress, chronic illness and issues around attachment or abandonment. Debs describes her work as hopeful and resilient - she wants people to recognise their own strengths. People who choose Debs often want a warm, steady presence and practical ways to cope.
She combines lived experience with professional practice to help people move forward at their own pace. If someone prefers an approach rooted in human connection, she invites them to start a conversation.
How Debs brings therapeutic approaches online
Client-Centred Therapy focuses on listening with warmth and respect. The counsellor offers a steady, non-judgemental presence so people can share their story and decide what matters most to them. This approach is helpful for grief, self-esteem and long-standing emotional pain.Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts, feelings and behaviours interact and uses practical steps to change unhelpful patterns. It can be useful for anxiety, phobias, low mood and coping with life changes. Internal Family Systems treats difficult feelings as parts of a person and helps people understand and relate to those parts with curiosity and care, which can suit trauma or attachment issues.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Debs will talk with clients about goals, preferences and what feels most useful. She combines listening with chosen techniques, and reviews progress so the plan can change if needed.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat or text-based messaging to fit different lives. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation, phone sessions work when bandwidth is limited, and chat or messaging can be a shorter check-in or a way to reflect between sessions. These options make it easier to build counselling into busy schedules and to get consistent support from a distance.
Questions people ask
What kinds of problems can be explored in sessions?
How would you describe her therapeutic style?
What is her background and experience?
Where is Debs based and what credential does she hold?
Which languages are supported in sessions?
Can I work with her if I live outside the UK?
What formats are available for online sessions?
How are costs and scheduling handled?
What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Grief
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hearing impaired
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Trichotillomania
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 15 years
- Licensed
- Languages
- English
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