HAMPSTEAD actor Tom Conti is opening one of Britain’s first low cost high street walk-in psychotherapist centres tomorrow (Friday).
The new charitable John Bowlby Centre at Commercial Street, Whitechapel, claims it will provide therapy traditionally available only to the privileged few.
The project, with fees of between £5 and £10 a 50-minute session, particularly aims to help young men vulnerable to suicidal thoughts – the “blues project” – and refugees who are suffering from rejection and alienation from the host community.
The NHS provides psychotherapy but there are very long waiting lists and a top private consultant can cost as much as £70 to £80 an hour. Most doctors rather than refer patients for counselling will proscribe anti-depressants. Susie Orbach, Belsize Park writer and therapist who helped set up the scheme through CAPP (Centre for the Attachment-based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy) said the centre will mean clients will not have to struggle through a lot of red tape before they are seen. “It’s for people who don’t know how to put their problems into words,” she said.” And they don’t want to put it into a medical category.”
She is a trustee, as is fellow Hampstead resident Sir Richard Bowlby, son of John Bowlby, who developed attachment theory.
Ms Orbach co-founded the first women’s therapy centre in Manor Gardens, Islington, in 1976.
Hampstead therapist Kate White, said: “People with a problem will be able to walk in and if they can’t be seen immediately will get an appointment to come back. We will also be able to refer them to therapists where they live be it Camden, Islington or the West End.”

• John Bowlby Centre, 147 Commercial Street, E1 6BJ. Phone: 020 7247 9101.