Asta Brandes , BACP

Asta Brandes is a counsellor with six years of professional experience working in the United Kingdom. She holds BACP accreditation, and focuses on stress, anxiety, anger, self-esteem, career issues and depression. Asta aims to meet people where they are and to build on their existing strengths. She views clients as the experts of their own lives and supports them to take practical steps towards change.

Her style is warm and straightforward. Sessions are centred on listening first and then working together to set clear, achievable goals. She encourages small, steady steps rather than sudden overhauls. People often come for help with motivation, confidence and getting unstuck at work.

Asta also addresses deeper life themes like attachment and abandonment, midlife transitions, and questions about life purpose. She draws on psychodynamic ideas to look at patterns that repeat over time. This can help uncover where certain reactions come from and open up new options.

She uses solution-focused and client-centred ways of working to keep sessions practical and relevant. Those approaches help when the aim is to solve a specific problem or to find workable coping strategies. Asta combines this with existential reflection when people face questions about meaning or identity.

Sessions are offered in English and German. She supports people dealing with panic attacks, social anxiety, communication problems, control issues, and the stresses of caregiving or separation. The overall aim is to support people to feel more confident and able to make choices that suit them.

Approaches that suit online work and life challenges

Asta often uses client-centred work and solution-focused methods in online sessions. Client-centred therapy focuses on listening and reflecting back what matters to the person, which helps build trust and clarity. Solution-focused work narrows in on practical steps and what is already working, so sessions can produce quick, usable ideas for change.

She also draws on psychodynamic thinking when deeper patterns are in view. That approach looks at repeated reactions and early relationship patterns to help people understand why they respond as they do and to open up new choices. Together these approaches allow a flexible mix of short-term problem solving and longer-term reflection based on each person's needs.

Finding the right mix is a collaborative process. The therapist will help you decide which approach to emphasise, based on your goals, worries and preferences. Sessions can shift over time as priorities change, so the plan is reviewed together rather than fixed in advance.

Online therapy offers practical flexibility. Video calls are useful for face-to-face conversation and non-verbal cues, phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited, and live chat or text-based messaging can be easier for brief check-ins or when writing feels more comfortable. These options make it simpler to fit therapy into work, caregiving schedules or busy days, while keeping continuity across sessions.