Online therapy & counselling for depression
When everything feels like effort.
Affordable, open-ended therapy for depression and low mood. A weekly hour that’s yours, to feel more like yourself again.
The depression self-check
How heavy have things felt lately?
This is the PHQ-9: a short, widely used screening questionnaire for depression. It won’t diagnose anything, but it can help you see where you are.
Private by design: your answers stay in your browser. We don’t see, save or track them, and nothing here is linked to you.
Over the last two weeks, how often have you felt…
The PHQ-9 was developed by Drs Robert L. Spitzer, Kurt Kroenke, Janet B.W. Williams and colleagues, with an educational grant from Pfizer Inc. It is free to use without permission. A signpost, not a diagnosis.
This is a reflection, not a diagnosis. Hora isn't an emergency service. If you're in immediate danger call 999, or NHS 111 (mental health option). Samaritans: 116 123.
How it works
Three steps to get you started:
An assessment
A 25-minute assessment with an experienced clinician, to understand what you need and find the right fit.
Choose your therapist
Straight after your assessment, you’re sent a selection of therapist profiles to browse, each with their own specialisms and interests. You choose who you’d like to work with, and begin soon after, with no long wait for your first session.
A weekly hour
Open-ended weekly sessions online, at the same time each week, held just for you. No contract and no minimum commitment, so you stay for as long as it helps.
£26 for your first assessment, then £40 a session. No membership and no minimum commitment.
How Hora helps with depression
Someone to sit with it, not rush you through it.
Your therapist is equipped to understand what sits beneath the low mood, and help it lift. The same steady hour, every week, held for as long as it helps.
Good to know
Common questions
Yes. For depression, research has found online therapy works well. When energy and motivation are low, being able to attend from home, without a journey to manage, often makes it easier to keep going week to week.
The PHQ-9 (Patient Health Questionnaire-9) is a short, widely used and validated screening questionnaire for depression. Clinicians use it to gauge how low someone has been feeling over the last two weeks. It’s a helpful signpost, not a diagnosis. A proper assessment always looks at the fuller picture.
CBT is one of the treatments the NHS recommends for depression, and it helps many people. Some of our therapists draw on CBT-informed approaches, but we’re not a specialist CBT service. If a short, structured CBT programme is what you’re after, we’ll be honest about that at your assessment.
A one-off £26 assessment, then £40 for each 50-minute weekly session: no membership, no minimum commitment, no hidden fees. Genuinely affordable, with your therapist paid fairly for their work.
Everyone has low days. Depression tends to be more persistent: low mood or loss of interest most of the day, most days, for a couple of weeks or more, often with changes to sleep, appetite, energy or concentration. The PHQ-9 above can help you see where you are, and if you’re unsure, an assessment with one of our experienced clinicians is a good place to talk it through.
Please treat that seriously and reach out for support now. Hora isn’t an emergency service. If you’re in immediate danger or don’t feel able to keep yourself safe, call 999, or NHS 111 and choose the mental health option. Samaritans are there any time on 116 123, or text SHOUT to 85258. You deserve support, and you don’t have to hold this alone.
It’s worth asking who actually delivers therapy this affordable. A lot of low-cost online therapy comes from counsellors early in a one- or two-year training, almost always working unpaid, and sometimes presented as fully qualified when they’re not. Hora is the honest version: your therapist is a psychotherapist in advanced UKCP-accredited clinical training, the deepest and most rigorous route in the profession, closely supervised and with hundreds of clinical hours behind them, and paid fairly for every session. Therapy is open-ended, with no session cap and no income test, and you choose who you work with. Genuinely affordable, and never built on someone’s free labour.
Hora isn’t an emergency service. If you’re in immediate danger, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. For urgent support, these free services are there any time: Samaritans on 116 123, Shout by texting SHOUT to 85258, NHS 111 for urgent mental-health advice, and Switchboard for LGBTQIA+ people on 0800 0119 100. If you’re not in crisis but things feel heavy, booking an assessment is a good next step.