Pete Askew is a psychotherapeutic counsellor in Morpeth, Northumberland, whose practice is grounded in Transactional Analysis (TA) — a relational, psychodynamic approach to understanding life patterns. His integrative work also draws on Gestalt therapy, Existential therapy, and a Jungian philosophical orientation, with a relational and trauma-informed foundation throughout.

My Approach

Most people do not come to therapy because they are interested in psychological theory.

They come because something in life no longer works as it once did.

Anxiety becomes overwhelming. Relationships repeat familiar pain. Burnout takes hold. A sense of meaning disappears. Or the strategies that once helped someone survive begin to leave them exhausted, disconnected, or stuck.

Therapy offers a space to slow down and pay closer attention to what may be happening beneath these experiences.

My work is grounded in Transactional Analysis psychotherapy, while also drawing from Gestalt, Existential, psychodynamic, and Jungian approaches.

I think less in terms of rigid schools of therapy and more in terms of what genuinely helps people encounter themselves honestly, safely, and with greater depth.

Transactional Analysis

Transactional Analysis helps us understand the patterns we learn early in life — the ways we adapt, protect ourselves, and relate to others.

Often, these patterns once helped us survive difficult environments or relationships. Over time, however, they can begin to feel restrictive, leaving us stuck in ways of coping or relating that no longer fit who we are becoming.

TA provides a practical and relational framework for understanding these patterns and beginning to change them.

Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy brings attention to present-moment experience.

Rather than speaking about life entirely from a distance, we pay attention to what is happening emotionally, physically, and relationally in the here and now.

This can help people reconnect with emotions, needs, and parts of themselves that have long been pushed aside or overlooked.

Existential Therapy

Existential therapy engages the deeper questions that often emerge beneath anxiety, burnout, or transition.

Questions of meaning. Identity. Freedom. Loneliness. Responsibility. Mortality. How we wish to live.

These questions are part of being human, yet many people carry them alone for years without space to speak about them honestly.

Jungian Influence

Alongside these approaches, a Jungian sensibility quietly informs my work.

I am interested in the deeper patterns that shape a person’s life: the recurring difficulties we find themselves caught within, the parts of themselves pushed aside in order to cope, and the possibility that periods of crisis may also contain the beginnings of transformation.

This is not about imposing symbolic interpretations onto your experience. What matters most is always your lived reality.

You do not need to know or care about Jung for this work to be meaningful.

The Therapeutic Relationship

At the centre of my work is the therapeutic relationship itself.

I do not see therapy as something done to you, but as something we enter into together.

Change rarely happens through insight alone. More often, it emerges gradually through honesty, trust, attention, and the experience of being met differently than perhaps you have been before.

I also work in a trauma-informed way, which means we move carefully and respectfully. There is no pressure to disclose more than feels manageable, and no assumption that healing comes through force or exposure. You will never be asked to move faster than feels safe. If something we are exploring feels too much, we slow down or step back. The aim is always to expand your capacity to be with your own experience — not to push past it.

Safety, pacing, and consent matter deeply.

How this comes together in practice

In a session, these approaches are not separate tracks running in parallel. TA provides the conceptual map — the understanding of ego states, life scripts, relational patterns, and psychological needs. Gestalt provides the experiential ground — the body, the present moment, the felt sense. The existential dimension holds the larger questions of meaning and identity. The Jungian sensibility attends to what lives in the depths. And the relational foundation is the atmosphere in which all of it takes place.

My role is not to apply a method to your problem. It is to listen deeply, stay curious, and offer the right kind of support at the right moment. You are the expert on your own life. I am here to help you hear yourself more clearly.

I work with people of all backgrounds, beliefs, and none. You do not need to hold any particular worldview to find this work meaningful.