What is counselling?

Counselling is a talking therapy that creates a facilitated space in which people can discuss their difficult feelings and the problems they encounter in a safe, confidential, non-judgemental environment.

I come from a humanistic / person-centred / client-centred stand-point, which basically means that I am here as your facilitator and that you are the expert on you, as only you can know your inner-most thoughts. I am not here to provide an advisory service. I am here to help you to explore your situation, your perceived problems and the options available to you, including the options you didn’t initially recognise that you had, so that you can choose the way to proceed that is best for you.

I work with clients on a one-to-one basis in an integrative way, which means I call upon the tools and approaches that appear to best fit when it comes to resolving the problems you are presenting. I talk more about the way I work on my approach page.

I work with a pluralistic philosophy, which means that if there is more than one way to approach a problem, I’ll let you know what those approaches are so that we can collaboratively choose which approach to take. I'm keen to give my clients the best, longest lasting affects in the shortest, least painful way possible.

As counsellor I act as the facilitator, holding the therapeutic space as a place for you to un-package and explore your thoughts and feelings. I am here to help you explore how you relate to the situation you find yourself in, what brought you there and your options for the future. In life we all have constraints we exist within. We explore what is in your power to change, what is not and uncover options, some of which you may not have realised were there.

Counselling is not a service where you are given advice but it will help you to identify what sources of guidance and additional practical help are available to you.

Benefits

Some of the potential benefits of individual counselling are:

• improved interpersonal skills, communication skills and ability to resolve conflict
• improved self-esteem and greater self-acceptance
• ability to change break old, unhelpful habits self-defeating patterns
• recognising that not emotion is ‘good’ or bad’, with a better ability to recognise, express and manage own emotions, including anger
• lessening of low mood / diagnosed depression and improved coping strategies
• reduced level of anxiety and stress and improved coping strategies
• improved self-awareness and self-acceptance
• increased faith in self, confidence and ability to make decisions
• improved problem-solving abilities

Limitations

Some of the limitations or drawbacks of individual counselling are:

• Discomfort during the process - for therapy to work you need to be at a point where you are open and ready to engage in it. Therapies tend to involve a stage that is described as a ‘healing crisis’, where you feel worse for a time as everything sinks in before you start feeling better. If you are finding this stage difficult, please raise it so that we are both aware of how you are coping in the moment. You will need to be aware of the pace of disclosure that works for you. As a side note, if using online counselling there is a risk of sharing things sooner than you are ready to.
• Potential leakage of privacy - everyone involves takes an oath about confidentiality. Sharing anonymised details about your situation can only be done with your express permission, granted prior to any disclosure. This includes in anonymised cases studies.
• If the counselling relationship is not handled properly, such as a sudden halt before disclosed content has been properly worked through an resolved, this may lead to more negative impact for the client.
• If the content to be worked through is particularly complex, or has been a problem for a very long time, this can make the presented problems less straight-forward to resolve. It can be difficult to make and maintain changes that feel alien in comparison to how you would normally do things, so can be a reason for more sessions being needed before therapy concludes.

What I will need to know from you

From the start I want to know what your goals for therapy are, i.e. what you want to come away with from these sessions. Knowing this helps us to focus our approach, to help us get you from where you are to where you want to be. The size and complexity of these goals and the pace at which you can comfortably work through your challenges will have some influence on how many sessions will be needed.

I want to know if you’ve had any kind of talking therapy and if so, what worked well and what didn’t, so that we can use more of the things you found helpful before and avoid using the things you know were unhelpful to you.

I will need to know your GP details as a precautionary measure in order to help keep you safe.

If we are working online I will also need to know the contact details for you nominated emergency contact. This is someone I will contact if you do not attend without notice of lateness or cancellation, to check on your whereabouts and personal safety. It is helpful to let your nominated emergency contact know that they have been nominated so that a call doesn't come as a surprise to them. What we discuss will not be shared with them.

The frustration and stress of our modern time can take its toll.
You don’t have to wait until your life is spiralling out of control.

Are you ready to change your life for the better?