our story

The Next Chapter Collective is a group of qualified and experienced counsellors working in and around Edinburgh and online.

The Next Chapter social enterprise began in January 2019 with a group of 6 counsellors and a massage therapist, and quickly grew to include 15 counsellors and a reflexology practitioner, as well as groupwork practitioners.

We originally opened in premises in William Street in the West End of Edinburgh. Our aim was to support people’s wellbeing by providing accessible, high-quality counselling, as well as bodywork therapies and therapy groups. The centre included a bookshop offering books on a range of wellbeing topics. At that time, we had access to charitable funding to enable practitioners to offer reduced fee counselling to those who couldn’t afford standard fee therapy. All practitioners were self-employed and independent but working together as a community to support one another in our practices.

Then came 2020 and the pandemic. Over lockdown, we offered therapy online, returning to face to face work when this was permitted. The bookshop remained closed for well over a year. This was a difficult period for a new business but we weathered it together.

However, some of the long-term consequences of this challenging period contributed to the eventual difficult decision to close our William Street centre. Other factors were part of this process too, including management changes, the winding-up of our charity funding scheme, and changes which impacted the viability of the premises.

The centre in William Street closed in December 2023 after 5 successful years and many thousands of therapy sessions there.

Since January 2024 we have chosen to continue working together as a collective of counsellors. We now practice from a variety of therapy spaces in and around Edinburgh as well as offering online counselling. While we no longer have access to the reduced-fee funding scheme, many of our practitioners continue to offer some concessionary spaces alongside private practice. We support one another in myriad ways, with our online presence and shared trainings, resources, supervision groups and social occasions. We are all committed to continuing reflection, development and learning so that we can support our clients with whatever they bring to therapy, and the collective is part of what makes this possible.