About Counselling In Tunbridge Wells

At Counselling In Tunbridge Wells, we believe that everyone deserves to live a happy and fulfilling life. We offer a unique opportunity for you to be listened to by a trained therapist in a warm and supportive environment where you can explore your challenges and develop the tools you need to thrive.

Meet Your Therapist

Sam Pearmain is a qualified counsellor, recognised by the BACP with extensive experience helping adults and young people navigate a wide range of life’s challenges. Here’s a closer look at Sam’s background and approach:

  • Sam is an award winning, experienced counsellor and life coach based in Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks, offering professional, compassionate support to adults, young people, and couples. She provides a safe, confidential, and non-judgemental space where clients can explore their thoughts, feelings, and experiences at their own pace, feeling heard, supported, and understood.
  • Sam is proud to have been recognised for the quality of care she provides. In addition to receiving the Prestige Award 2025/2026 for Couples Counselling, she was recently honoured with the Prestige Award 2026/2027 for Best Counselling Clinic in the South East. These awards reflect her commitment to providing thoughtful, professional and compassionate support to every client who walks through her door.
  • She works with clients of all ages and supports a wide range of concerns, including anxiety, depression, OCD, trauma, bereavement, anger management, relationship difficulties, low self-esteem, stress, identity, education and career concerns, chronic health conditions, body image, sexuality, sexual and domestic abuse, life stage transitions, and emotional overwhelm. She also works with neurodivergent clients, including those who identify as autistic, ADHD, or otherwise neurodivergent, offering therapy that is flexible, affirming, and adapted to individual communication styles and needs.
  • Sam brings extensive experience across different settings. Additionally to her own private practice, she has worked locally in a hospice setting, supporting clients both post-diagnosis and through pre- and post-bereavement, providing sensitive care during profoundly challenging times. Nationally, she has worked with a charity supporting survivors of sexual abuse and domestic abuse, offering trauma-informed counselling and support to help clients rebuild safety, resilience, and self-trust.
  • Her approach is integrative and client-centred, drawing on person-centred therapy, gestalt therapy, transactional analysis, and psychodynamic approaches. This allows Sam to tailor counselling to each client, whether they are looking to better understand themselves, make sense of past experiences, or find more effective ways of coping in the present.
  • Sam supports clients with all challenges but has a keen interest in anxiety, depression, OCD and women’s health including pregnancy, pre and post pregnancy, infertility, menopause, miscarriage and loss, abortion and the many emotional changes that can accompany motherhood and later life. Sam has completed additional training in these areas and is currently studying for a Masters qualification in treating Eating Disorders.

Extensive Experience, Tailored Support

Sam is known for her calm, thoughtful presence and her ability to create a therapeutic relationship where clients feel genuinely heard and accepted. She recognises the importance of working at a pace that feels right for each person and values collaboration, curiosity, and compassion within the counselling process.

In addition to traditional talking therapy, Sam offers couples counselling, outdoor therapy, and equine-assisted counselling.

Sam is deeply passionate about counselling and believes that, with the right support, people can develop greater self-awareness, resilience, and emotional wellbeing. She is committed to providing a warm, professional, and supportive space where clients can explore challenges and move towards positive, lasting change.

If you are looking for a counsellor in Tunbridge Wells or Sevenoaks and feel Sam may be the right fit for you, you are warmly invited to get in touch. An initial conversation can help you decide whether counselling feels like the right next step for you.

Sam’s Philosophy

If life feels overwhelming, you’re struggling with anxiety or depression, your thoughts won’t switch off, or something has happened that you’re finding difficult to make sense of, you don’t have to work it all out on your own. 

Sometimes you may not even be aware of why you are feeling the way you are but you just know something isn’t quite right, or you may need a place to call your own while you work through your thoughts. Whatever the reason may be, together we can work out what is happening for you and make sense of it to help you find a way through.

I offer a warm, down-to-earth and non-judgemental space where you can talk openly and honestly, without feeling judged. Sometimes we know exactly what is troubling us; sometimes we simply know that life doesn’t feel the way it used to be or we want it to. Either way, I can give you the space to understand what’s happening and find a way forward.

My approach is person-centred, which means I start with you — your experiences, your feelings and what matters to you. I won’t judge you or tell you what you should do or how you should feel. Instead, I’ll work alongside you to understand what is happening and help you develop greater clarity, self-awareness and confidence where you feel able to make the changes that you want to, the ones that feel right for you not someone else.  Together we can find a way through that feels like the best fit for you.

I believe that healing and hope are possible for everyone, regardless of background or experience.

I work inclusively, recognising and accepting each client as an individual; you are your own expert with unique needs and perspectives. I believe that by truly listening to you and supporting you I can offer understanding and acceptance empowering you to flourish; to become the person you want to be and choose the life you want to live.

“We are not what happened to us, we are what we wish to become.” Carl Jung