I'm Marcus. No couch, no incense, no ten-syllable words for ordinary pain. A room near the harbourside, 50 straight minutes, and the stuff you've been carrying finally said out loud.
You're fine. You're always fine. You're exhausted from being fine.
The gym isn't fixing it anymore.
You talk to everyone and tell no one anything.
It's 2am, you're wide awake, and you're running the numbers on your entire life.
Something happened years ago. The plan, so far, has been to never mention it.
Three ways in, one way of working. It starts with a free 15-minute call, because you shouldn't have to commit to a stranger off the strength of a website. Then it's weekly sessions, in the room, along the harbourside, or online. That's it. That's the system.
50 minutes· £70
Weekly one-to-one psychotherapy in a plain-speaking room. For the anger that's actually grief, the drinking that's actually coping, and the tiredness that sleep doesn't touch.
A free 15-minute intro call before anything is booked · Weekly 50-minute sessions, in the room or online · Plain-English reviews of how the work is going, every few weeks
About individual sessions50 minutes· £70
The same therapy, taken outside. Side by side, outside, no sofa required. We follow the harbourside at a talking pace, and for a lot of men the words come easier when the eyes have somewhere else to be.
A free 15-minute intro call before anything is booked · Weekly 50-minute walking sessions along the harbourside · The room as a standing backup, at no extra cost, whenever it makes more sense
About walk-and-talk15 minutes · free
Fifteen minutes on the phone. You say what's going on, I tell you honestly whether I can help, and nobody uses the word 'journey'.
A real conversation, not a pitch · A straight answer about whether I'm the right fit · The name of someone better suited if I'm not
Book a straight-talking 15 minutes
I did not arrive at this work through a lifelong love of talking about feelings. I spent nine years as a structural engineer, and I was good at it, and for most of that time I was also quietly not alright in a way I had no words for and no intention of finding any. Eventually someone who loved me made an appointment on my behalf. I went in order to prove it wouldn't work. It worked. That annoyed me for about a month, and then it changed the direction of my life. I retrained, and I've spent the twelve years since sitting with men who walk in exactly as convinced as I was.
I work mostly with men because that's where the queue is quietly longest. The anger that's actually grief. The drinking that's actually coping. The success that arrives and feels like nothing. The men in my room are usually the most reliable person everyone else knows, and reliability, it turns out, is heavy.
The name is a working method, not a slogan. I'll tell you what I see, plainly and kindly, and I'll expect honesty back when you're ready to give it. Direct is not the same as harsh: nobody gets ambushed in here, nobody gets a lecture, and the pace is always yours. But you're not paying me to nod for fifty minutes, and I won't insult you by doing it. When something you're saying doesn't add up, I'll say so. Most men find that's the moment the work actually starts.
Engineers, chefs, delivery drivers, directors, dads. Men whose partners sent them the link, and men who found it themselves at 2am and sat on it for three months, which is normal, by the way. I'm a Black British man, Bristol born, and a member of BAATN, the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network. Some men choose me because they want a therapist who doesn't need the context of their lives explained line by line. Others never mention it. Both are exactly right.
Sessions run from a ground-floor room just off Welsh Back, out along the harbourside if we're walking, or online from wherever you are.
UKCP Registered
The UK Council for Psychotherapy, one of the UK's main regulators of psychotherapists, with ongoing supervision and ethics requirements
BAATN Member
The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network, the UK's largest community of therapists of Black, African, Asian and Caribbean heritage
I booked the call mostly to prove my wife wrong. That was fourteen months ago, and I have never once been asked about my star sign.
Fifty minutes of saying things out loud turned out to beat five years of not. I still can't fully explain how it works. I just know I stopped dreading Sundays.
No couch, no candles, no voice like a meditation app. A bloke who listens properly, says what he sees and doesn't let me change the subject. Exactly what I didn't know I needed.
There's no couch in the room, for a start. Two chairs, or the harbourside if we're walking. We start with what's actually going on in your life now. If your history is part of the pattern, and it sometimes is, we'll go there because it's useful, never because it's the ritual. Nobody will ask you to free-associate at the ceiling.
Then you're in the majority, and making the hour work is my job, not yours. Most men open with 'I don't really know why I'm here', which turns out to be a perfectly good start. I ask questions, you answer the ones you want to, and it builds faster than you'd expect.
Your mates are great, and they also have a stake in the version of you they already know. I don't. I'm trained to hear what's underneath what you're saying, I'll tell you the truth even when it's awkward, and everything stays in the room. Also, be honest: you weren't going to tell your mates. That's rather the point.
No. Most of my clients aren't in crisis. They're just tired of running on fumes and calling it normal. Earlier is easier, and you don't earn your place here by falling apart first. If you are in crisis right now, though, the urgent support routes on this site are the right door today, and I mean that.
We talk about your life. Work, family, the marriage, the 2am stuff. Feelings turn up inside all of that on their own; they don't need a formal invitation. I'm not going to ask you what colour your sadness is. I am going to notice when your voice changes, and say so.
Anyone who gives you a number off a website is guessing. Some men find three months does it, some stay a year or more because the work earns its keep. We review openly every few weeks, stopping is always yours to call, and you will never be strung along. That's a promise I'm happy to put in writing, and just did.
Yes, within the standard safety limits every ethical therapist works to. Nobody is told you're coming. There are no reports to employers and nothing on any record your GP or your firm can see, unless you ask me in writing to share something. The limits are serious risk to your life or someone else's, or where the law requires it, and I explain exactly how that works, in plain words, before we start.
You call, or I call you. You say what's going on, in whatever order it comes out. I tell you how I'd work with it and what it costs, which is already on the website. Then you go away and decide in your own time. No follow-up sequence, no 'just checking in' emails. If it's a no, it's a no.
The practice is a ground-floor room just off Welsh Back, two minutes from Bristol Bridge and ten on foot from Temple Meads. Walk-and-talk sessions start at the same door and follow the floating harbour. Online sessions run across the UK.
Studio 4, 18 Welsh Back, Bristol BS1 4RR
You've read this far, which usually means something. The next step is a free 15-minute call. You tell me what's going on, in whatever order it comes out, and I give you a straight answer about whether I can help. If the answer's no, I'll point you at someone better suited. Either way you'll know more than you do now.
Book a straight-talking 15 minutesFree 15-minute intro call · early and evening slots