Darek is a Supervision Lead, Senior Associate Counselling Psychologist, and Advanced Level Certified Schema Therapist with 18 years of experience in the mental health field. He is a member of the Psychotherapy Division of the British Psychological Society (BPS), The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), and the International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST).

Darek’s interest in counselling and psychotherapy started when he wrote his MTh thesis on ‘Pastoral Care and the Postmodern Self’ at Cardiff University in 1999. After that, he studied psychology and received a Master’s degree in Psychology specialising in Psychotherapy and Crisis Intervention. His research focused on ‘Basic hope and perseverance in psychotherapy’.

He has had the advantage of working in a psychiatric hospital with a multidisciplinary team specialising in addiction, co-addiction, depression, anxiety, trauma, and personality disorders. Working there, he developed his individual and group psychotherapy skills. He also learnt how to use the interpersonal approach to psychotherapy while combining it with CBT, Schema Therapy, Motivational Interviewing and Trauma Treatment. The integrative approach to psychotherapy, where every individual’s needs are respected, still is his preferred mode of working. Darek began his private practice in 2007. Soon after that, he joined a team of skilful professionals with whom he had a common interest in Schema Therapy. Since then, he has been developing in Schema Therapy which is an integrative model, drawing on CBT, psychodynamic, gestalt, constructivism, and attachment models.  Sometimes he combines Schema Therapy with Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Mentalisation Based Treatment (MBT), and Mindfulness. But what is more important, he considers it a privilege to be part of his clients’ journey of self-discovery, during which they see their needs clearly and grow to become the people they really want to be.

His current interests include Right-Brain Psychotherapy, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Body-Dreaming in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma, Existential Psychoanalysis, Supervision and Intersecionality, Saxophone, Jazz, and Tai Chi.