About held

A cozy scene with a lit candle, a mug of hot chocolate or coffee, and a notebook on a wooden table in front of a lit fireplace.

Twenty three years in Haywards Heath.
A fresh start

held is built on the foundations of the Haywards Heath Counselling Centre, which has been part of this community for over two decades. We have taken that history of care and trust, and brought it forward into something new.

Our name reflects what good therapy does: it holds you while you work things out. Not fixing, not advising, not judging. Just holding.

Gavin Demurger-Jones, Counsellor, Psychotherapist and Practice Director at held. Wearing a plaid shirt, looking serious, standing against a plain light-colored wall.

Meet Gavin Demurger-Jones, Centre Director and Counsellor

Gavin is a qualified counsellor with a practice of his own and a personal commitment to making therapy in Haywards Heath genuinely better.

Before training as a therapist, Gavin spent twenty years in the advertising industry, building businesses, designing systems, and working out how to communicate clearly with people. That background shapes the way held works: professionally run, carefully considered, and focused on what actually matters.

Gavin personally reviews every enquiry that comes into held. That is not a marketing line. It is how the centre operates. He believes that the quality of the match between client and therapist is one of the most important factors in whether therapy works, and he takes that responsibility seriously.

What held stands for

• We believe therapy works best when you feel genuinely seen, not processed.

• We think the relationship between client and therapist matters more than any particular method.

•  We are committed to face to face therapy, in a space that feels calm, private, and welcoming.

• We take matching seriously. The right therapist for you is not the same as the right therapist for someone else.

• We make it easy to start, and we are honest if we cannot help.

Our home in Haywards Heath

held is based at 7 Hazelgrove Road, Haywards Heath RH16 3PH. Our therapy rooms are dedicated clinical spaces, quiet and private, designed for the kind of conversation that takes courage to have.

We are a few minutes from the town centre, with parking nearby and easy access from across Mid Sussex including Burgess Hill, Lindfield, Cuckfield, and the surrounding villages.