Counselling will give you the opportunity to explore your thoughts, feelings and behaviours to find ways of being that are more to your liking.
I find giving clients a place to explore how they relate to others and themselves with a person who is non judgemental and not personally involved is useful. Clients can gain insight and understanding to help give them more choices in their life. I use a mainly talking approach drawing on theory from all the major psychologies to form my integrative approach.
People come to counselling and therapy for a lot of reasons. You may be having a particular problem or just feel your life journey is not as you wish but not sure how to change the course. You may have experienced:
- past or recent trauma,
- illness
- bereavement
- the end of a relationship
- depression,
- stress
- change of work situation or
- just not sure where you are going in life
You maybe feeling anxious, fearful, unsafe, sad or angry with something happening now or from your past that is currently affecting you.
I have experience working with teachers, police officers, NHS staff, other public sector employees as well as self-employed and private sector employees. I have also worked with clients whose time is taken up looking after the house, children and maybe partners. Or clients that are part or full time carers for relatives or friends. You may come to see me for an initial assessment to see if we can work together. I believe the relationship between you and me is very important; for you to feel safe and develop trust to explore some, possibly, very difficult issues.
I work with adults who are over 18. I do not work with couples. If you are under 18 I am unable to offer you an appointment as I do not have relevant training to offer you an ethical, professional service.
I offer either short term or open ended counselling and therapy. I have experience working with clients for a few sessions (6, 12 or 24 sessions) or longer term (24 + sessions). We will regularly review your goals and progress in our sessions so that we are mutually working towards what you want. Like all Counsellors and psychotherapists I have a clinical supervisor who I see regularly to discuss my case work. However confidentiality is maintained. Please see my section on confidentiality for more information.
I believe that during our development in childhood, adolescence and beyond we have to find ways to adapt our 'self' to our environment, either in our behaviour, feelings, beliefs, values or thoughts. These are often very useful, but sometimes they become outdated and no longer useful, but are so automatic (part of our 'self') that we need help to gain a different perspective and insight so that we can make other choices.