Richard Cox

About me

“Direct, grounded, and quietly challenging. I didn’t realise how much I was avoiding myself until I started therapy.”

Hello, I’m Rick.
I work with people who are stuck in patterns they understand very well, but still can’t seem to change.

Many of my clients are thoughtful, capable, and self-aware. They’ve reflected a lot. They often know why they are the way they are. And yet, under stress, in relationships, or in emotionally loaded situations, the same reactions keep repeating.

This isn’t a lack of insight. It’s your emotional and nervous system doing what it learned to do a long time ago.

My work focuses on three simple things:
● The feelings you’re not yet able to fully experience
● The anxiety your body uses to keep those feelings under control
● The patterns and habits (often outside awareness) that help you cope, but also keep you stuck

Most suffering is not caused by our emotions. It’s caused by avoiding them.

This is an active, focused form of therapy.
We don’t just talk about your past or analyse your problems from a distance. We pay close attention to what happens in the room, in your body, and between us.

Together, we’ll start to notice:
● How anxiety shows up in you physically
● How you automatically move away from certain feelings
● How these patterns shape your relationships and your inner life
● What we can do differently so something new can happen

Real change doesn’t come from simply understanding something. If it did, you wouldn’t be here. It comes from allowing your nervous system to have a new emotional experience.

I often work with people who:
● Struggle with anxiety, overthinking, or emotional tension
● Feel emotionally shut down, flat, or disconnected
● Keep repeating the same patterns in relationships
● Seem “high-functioning” on the outside but feel stuck inside
● Have tried therapy before and found that talking helped, but didn’t really change things

I organise my work around three simple truths:
● Feelings don’t go away because we ignore them.
● Anxiety is a body response, not just a thought.
● Coping strategies (like overthinking, keeping busy, pleasing others, staying in control) often protect us, and also quietly limit our lives.

Therapy is about helping your system learn that it no longer has to work so hard to keep things contained.

I’m calm, direct, and engaged. I won’t push you faster than you can go. But I also won’t let you spend months going in circles without noticing it. I’ll help you see how you do what you do, kindly and honestly.

Clients often describe me as:
“Grounded, thoughtful, and more active than I expected in a good way.”

What to expect in the first session
We’ll look at:
● What brings you to therapy now
● How your difficulties actually operate day to day
● How anxiety shows up in your body
● How you currently cope with difficult feelings
● What kind of work is likely to help

You’ll leave with a clearer sense of what’s really going on and whether this way of working feels right for you.

As of 2026, I'm a UK-based, BACP-accredited therapist with over 8 years’ experience and more than 4,000 hours of clinical work.

I’ve worked extensively with:
● Anxiety and stress
● Trauma and early emotional wounding
● Relationship and attachment difficulties
● Emotional fragility, shutdown and over-control
● Long-standing internally frustrating repetitive patterns that don’t respond to “just talking about it”

I also know this territory personally. I’m not interested in fixing you. I’m interested in helping you stop having to fight your own emotional system.

There is nothing wrong with you.
There is something unfinished.
And it can be worked through.

Professional experience

Additional areas of focus: Addictions, Grief, Intimacy-related issues, Eating disorders, Sleeping disorders, Parenting issues, Anger management, Self esteem, Career difficulties, Bipolar disorder, Depression, Compassion fatigue, Abandonment, Antisocial personality, Attachment issues, Avoidant personality, BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture, Blended family issues, Body image, Codependency, Commitment issues, Control issues, Dependent personality, Dissociation, Drug and alcohol addiction, Eating and food-related issues, Emptiness, Family of origin issues, Family problems, Fatherhood issues, Forgiveness, Gender dysphoria, Guilt and shame, Hoarding, Impulsivity, Infidelity, Isolation / loneliness, Jealousy, Life purpose, Men's issues, Midlife crisis, Mood disorders, Panic disorder and panic attacks, Paranoia, Personality disorders, Phobias, Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships, Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling), Self-harm, Self-love, Sex addiction, Sexual assault and abuse, Sexual dysfunction, Sexuality, Social anxiety and phobia, Somatization, Women's issues, Workplace issues, Young adult issues

Clinical approaches: Attachment-Based Therapy, Client-Centered Therapy, Existential Therapy, Jungian Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Trauma-Focused Therapy

Credentials information

BACP Therapist - Registered Member MBACP (Accred) #394009

Reviews

These quotes represent just a few of the many positive reviews that we have received for Richard Cox. We don't pay anyone to provide their review and they are all made voluntarily. Some people's experience receiving therapy with BetterHelp might be different.