Heli Annika Giles, BACP

Heli Annika Giles is a UK-based integrative therapeutic counsellor who draws primarily on a person-centered way of working to support people through challenging life experiences. She is a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), the professional body for counsellors and psychotherapists in the United Kingdom, and she brings three years of clinical experience to her practice.

Heli offers a compassionate, non-judgmental space for people navigating anxiety, stress, relationship and family difficulties, low self-esteem, trauma and abuse, grief, parenting challenges, career concerns and life transitions. She also works with issues such as intimacy-related concerns, anger, compassion fatigue and chronic health or caregiving stress. Her approach is relational and collaborative, helping clients explore how past experiences and family of origin patterns may shape current feelings and behaviour.

Rather than aiming to fix people, Heli helps clients develop greater self-awareness, acceptance and practical coping skills. She combines elements from evidence-informed approaches to tailor support to each person’s needs, reviewing progress together and adjusting the work as goals evolve. Heli provides therapy in English and Finnish and focuses on creating clarity and practical tools to help people feel more like themselves again.

Therapeutic Approaches and Online Support

Heli integrates client-centered work and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to create a supportive online therapeutic space. Client-centered therapy focuses on empathy, unconditional positive regard and helping the person lead the conversation - it is useful for building self-awareness, exploring identity and improving self-esteem. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting overwhelmed and to take values-led action, which can be helpful for anxiety, stress and life changes.

She also draws on attachment-based ideas to explore how early relationships influence present patterns and relational difficulties, offering a lens for work with intimacy, family issues and parenting concerns. Finding the right approach is part of the process; Heli works collaboratively with each person and adapts methods to fit individual needs, goals and preferences rather than using a fixed protocol.

Online therapy sessions by video, phone, live chat or text-based messaging offer practical flexibility for people managing busy lives, caregiving roles or mobility limits. These options make it easier to maintain continuity of care, access therapy from home and fit sessions around work or family commitments while working with a registered professional who will tailor the work to what matters most to the client.