Space To Be You
Discover Space to Be You, a welcoming therapy practice in Hackney, East London, offering counselling and psychotherapy for individuals, couples, families and children.
Perfect For
Finding someone to talk to when life feels difficult, overwhelming or simply not quite right. Space to Be You offers therapy and counselling for individuals, couples, families, and children, whether you’re navigating anxiety, relationship difficulties, grief, uncertainty, family dynamics or a period of change.
Why You’ll Love It
Space to Be You is a welcoming modern therapy practice based in Hackney E8, East London. Rather than offering one particular kind of therapy, its team works across a range of approaches, including CBT, psychotherapy, person-centred and psychodynamic therapy, as well as more specialist support.
That choice matters when you’re not entirely sure what you need. You might arrive knowing exactly what you want help with, or simply with the feeling that something isn’t working anymore. The aim is to help you find the therapist and approach that feels right for you.
What Makes It Special
Space to Be You is London’s largest private therapy practice, with 20 thoughtfully designed therapy rooms across two floors in Hackney, creating a dedicated space in the city for people to talk, reflect and be supported.
There’s flexibility too. Alongside face-to-face sessions, the practice offers online psychotherapy and counselling, making it easier to find support that fits around your life, wherever you are.
The If Lost Take
Sometimes the hardest part of therapy is knowing where to begin. Do I really need help? Is what I’m going through “enough”? What kind of therapist do I need? And what if I don’t yet have the words for what’s going on?
We like Space to Be You because you don’t need to arrive with those answers. You can begin exactly where you are: anxious, disconnected, uncertain, overwhelmed, struggling in a relationship or simply aware that you don’t feel quite like yourself. With a large and varied team of therapists and different approaches available, there’s space to find the kind of support that works for you rather than trying to make yourself fit a particular model.
And perhaps the name says something important too. Therapy doesn’t always have to be about becoming a different or “better” version of yourself. Sometimes it can simply be a space where you don’t have to perform, cope, look after everyone else or pretend that everything is fine. A space to be you feels like a pretty good place to start.
Founder’s Story | Creating More Space for Therapy
Space to Be You grew from a belief that finding good therapy should feel more accessible, human and personal. Its Hackney home brings together a diverse community of therapists under one roof, with different areas of expertise, therapeutic approaches and ways of working.
That breadth means the practice can support people through many different stages and experiences of life, while still recognising that therapy is deeply individual. The right support isn’t necessarily the same for everyone; what matters is finding the person and approach that feel right for you.
Founder’s Go-To Wellbeing Advice
"You do not have to be perfect to be worthy of peace, rest, and kindness. Just being here is enough."
1st Floor, Mare Street Wing, St Joseph’s Hospice, Mare Street, London, E8 4SA, United Kingdom
Email: contact@spacetobeyou.com
Hackney Herbal
A garden and studio in Hackney promoting the well-being benefits of herbs and our connection with nature.
Go here if: you are curious about the potential for herbs and nature to impact your day-to-day life, you are looking for connection with others, or you are looking for strategies to improve your physical and mental wellbeing.
What is it: A social enterprise that promotes the wellbeing potential of herbs — growing them, cultivating them, using them as teas and remedies — founded in Hackney by Natalie Mady. Since its start in 2015, the community-minded business has gone on to collaborate with organizations such as Tate, Stella McCartney, and Kew Gardens.
What you need to know: From its garden space and studio, Hackney Herbal offers hands-on workshops that take a broad view of herbs – from practical skills that include how to grow and dry herbs for self-care purposes, and how to make herbal teas and remedies, to wider subjects like how to urban garden and how to connect with nature. Herbs here serve both as a practical remedy and a framework for thinking about our health and the environment
How to bring this into your life right now: Though Hackney Herbal is fundamentally about being together and working within nature, it has managed to put a selection of their workshops online. You can book classes in growing food on the windowsill, identifying wild herbs, and using essential oils for the mind. Also, they make handcrafted herbal tea blends from their own gardens and other organic growers that are available to buy, with profits funding initiatives that serve the local community.
Why we think it matters: By booking a workshop or an event or purchasing their teas and products, you are also supporting free nature-based programs that apply the therapeutic benefits of herbs to communities who need them such as the 6-week Herbal Craft Course at the Center for Better Health, and mental health orientated classes at Recovery College and the local chapter of the charity Mind.
In their own words: “We connect people, plants and place to:
1. Share knowledge and skills relating to horticulture, food growing, and nature
2. Inspire people on their own journeys with plants
3. Nurture the health and resilience of people and the land in Hackney
We use nature-based activities to allow people to come together, share ideas and collaborate. We provide a preventative intervention to the onset of poor mental health as well as a pathway to recovery for those already suffering. Our key outcomes follow the themes of health, education and community resilience.”
Something to do from wherever you are: Can’t wait to get started, Hackney Herbal offers tons of advice on their website and social media channels about making herbal remedies and growing herbs at home, as well as downloadable seasonal journals full of recipes (like this on making a solar infused oil or this on making a body scrub from coffee grounds), sales of which support their mission of increasing access to green spaces in the borough of Hackney and helping people improve their physical and mental health through herbs.
Prick
Beyond the best name for a store dedicated to cacti, Prick is making wider access to the greenery we all need part of its mission.
What is it: London’s first store dedicated entirely to cacti and succulents on Dalston’s Kingsland Road.
Why you’ll love it: With their geometric forms and unusual presentations, the plant life here read as nature’s aesthetic conjurings. Nominated for High Street Shop of 2020, the store feels more like a boutique than a garden center, with white walls, sculptural plinths, shelves of ceramics — “prick pots” – many of which have been commissioned by local artists and books on the subject rounding out the interior landscape. Even the wood here is sourced from the Natural History Museum’s Reading Rooms.
What you need to know: Prick was founded by Gynelle Leon, who at the age of 30 on a quest for a different story of happiness than the one she’d been sold retrained as a florist. Her love of plants had started to edge out an early career in finance and fraud prevention (her degree was in Forensic Science). A 2011 visit to Yves Saint Laurent’s Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh led her to fall for cacti’s diverse forms and set her on a global search to become an expert taking in the epic desert plant-life of the United States. Leon now sources unusual specimens (the shop stocks over 150 types) throughout the UK and Europe, forging relationships with auctions, nurseries, and collectors to curate the store’s collection of cacti and succulents.
In the summer, Prick expanded from just the plant shop to a new space which according to Gynelle “is not a shop but our event space for workshops, talks, panel discussions lectures, book clubs, coffee mornings… I love community and have always dreamt of a space where we can celebrate and enjoy plant culture.” Due to shifting COVID rules, we suggest checking social media for updates on this new stage of Prick.
Why we think it matters: As we spend more time at home – and we can all feel differently about that – those little pops of green around us start to matter. Plants have a direct impact on our wellbeing: seeing them reduces stress, caring for them gets us out of our heads, and even the air we breathe improves. Gynelle has been open about her own experiences of depression, stress, and anxiety and how “being around nature and especially caring for my houseplants provides me with moments of calm and allows me to be in flow.”
And yet, who has access to green spaces and those green pots, indeed who can cultivate them, hasn’t been historically equal. On researching and developing Prick, Gynelle found that she was one of the few people of color in horticulture, a field dominated by middle-class white men. She has since made it part of her mission to bring plants to everyone. That’s part of the appeal of houseplants – they can be for all — there’s no need for outdoor spaces, or vast amounts of experience, or expensive tools. Hardy, needing very little attention, cacti and succulents are the perfect companions for busy city dwellers and everyone who wants to tend to them. As Leon says: “We all should have the right to a connection with nature and the ability to make a career out of it. The representation in gardening media and the large horticultural bodies must change to inspire those of all walks of life and race.”
In their own words: “Prick sees cacti and succulents as living sculptures that take years to fully develop…A succulent plant has the potential to live for many years, sometimes even outliving its owners. Investing in plants is like gaining new flatmates or family members; a break away from our modern disposable culture.”
Gift edit: The shop is now in book form, Prick, but we’re also coveting this one and this one.
Something to do: Participate in Black Pound Day, started by Swiss of So Solid Crew, and now backed by Google, which takes place on the first Saturday of the month to encourage people to support black-owned businesses.