Bournemouth residents Ed Hannifan and Tom McDonald created Hammock Counselling towards the end of 2025, to provide people going through tough times with affordable and accessible sessions.
Tom and Ed (Image: Ed Hannifan)
Ed and Tom first met when they were training to be counsellors and volunteered at the same placement site in Hampshire.
Ed said: “That service had a huge impact on us.
“It showed us what truly high-quality, psychodynamic-informed therapy could look like when it was offered with care, professionalism and genuine accessibility at its core.”
Ed said accessibility was always a ‘non-negotiable’ for the pair, adding that after the site closed, it left a ‘real gap’ for clients and the professional community.
He said: “During our training and volunteering, we saw first-hand how life-changing therapy can be and also how often people are priced out of it.
“We believe meaningful therapy should be available to ordinary people living ordinary lives, especially during difficult periods. Hammock exists to bridge that gap, to show that therapy can be both affordable and deeply professional.”
With £30 sessions, Hammock wants to remove ‘unnecessary barriers’ while protecting quality, clinical standards and therapist wellbeing.
Alongside Hammock, the pair continue to work as counsellors- with Tom volunteering for STARS in Poole and Ed volunteering for Macmillan Caring Locally at Christchurch Hospital.
The sessions operate entirely online to make it accessible to people across the UK, especially those who may struggle to attend in-person due to work, caring responsibilities, health issues, or location.
Hammock offers counselling for a wide range of things, such as anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, grief and loss, identity questions and emotional challenges rooted in past experiences.
As well as providing care for clients, the pair emphasised how they believe ethical therapy depends on clinicians being supported too.
Ed added: “Hammock isn’t a faceless platform. It’s a service shaped by real people with real clinical experience and a genuine belief in the power of therapy to help people feel more understood, more grounded and more themselves.”
Looking to the future, Ed said that they’d love to see Hammock grow into a ‘nationally recognised service that people trust’.
He said: “Growth, for us, isn’t about scale for its own sake; it’s about reaching more people without compromising care, ethics, or quality.
“Long-term, we’d like Hammock to become another example of something thoughtful and values-led that started in the Bournemouth area and went on to make a positive impact across the UK, in the same spirit as other well-known local success stories.”
Sessions can be booked on the Hammock website.