Counselling
and Psychotherapy
About Counselling
Counselling with me is an opportunity to share your views, feel heard, find new perspectives on your situation and experiences, gain clarity and work towards achieving your goals.
We can...
- Discover your true feelings about what you have been through
- Understand why they had an impact or what the long-term effects are
- Replace difficult feelings with more positive emotions
- Heal old wounds, repair patterns of relating and improve your current relationships
- Integrate these experiences into your new way of being in a transformative way that makes a real difference to how you live your life
You might be wondering about the differences between terms like 'counselling,' 'psychotherapy,' and 'CBT,' and which might be best for you.
I use techniques from a variety of counselling approaches to provide support and tools that are specifically tailored to your needs. Since there is no single approach that fits everyone, we will explore various methods to see what resonates with you. What matters most is establishing a safe and trusting working relationship so that we can collaborate effectively to help you move forward.
Counselling
This approach addresses immediate concerns, focusing on specific issues or crisis points in your life, such as bereavement, grief, or other forms of loss; changes in relationships or jobs; communication challenges; loss of direction in life; critical decision-making moments, and various other situations where trained support can be highly beneficial.
This approach centers on how you perceive yourself and the world around you, exploring how these perceptions influence your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. By increasing your self-awareness, it can help you reach your full potential..
Counseling takes place within a safe and trusting relationship, built on openness, acceptance, and clear boundaries. It's a space free from judgment, where you are accepted for who you are, with empathy for what you've experienced. The aim is to genuinely get to know you, so you can also come to know yourself in a self-compassionate and loving way.
You may be familiar with CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), which can be incorporated into counseling to help identify thought patterns and beliefs that may be driving negative behaviors and impacting your life. The primary goal of CBT is to enhance self-awareness, with the understanding that while you may not be able to change certain circumstances in your life, you can learn to shift your perception and reaction to them.
Psychotherapy
This approach is particularly effective for addressing deep-rooted issues that influence your relationship with yourself and others. It aims to uncover unconscious thoughts that may be unintentionally shaping your current behaviours, emotions, and perceptions. These underlying thoughts are often connected to unresolved or unaddressed experiences from childhood.
We explore how your unconscious thought processes and emotions, shaped by past personal relationships, influence your daily life. This focus helps to understand and address how these deep-seated patterns affect your current experiences and interactions.
We tackle this by exploring how past experiences have influenced your psychological and emotional development. This process is carried out within the secure and supportive framework of our therapeutic relationship. The strength of our relationship is key, as it creates a safe, non-judgmental space for you to examine your patterns and unconscious conflicts.
Through this work, we gain valuable insights and a deeper understanding, fostering greater self-awareness and personal growth.
Our Counselling Alliance
It's perfectly fine to start counseling without knowing which approach will be most effective. I will listen to your needs and adapt my methods accordingly, helping you get a sense of what works best. We may shift between different counseling approaches as needed. The most important thing is that you find the therapy helpful, healing, and effective for your situation.
Trainee Counsellors
I have extensive experience supporting students with personal therapy during their counselling training.
I provide a safe, trusting and wholly empathic space in which to explore your thoughts, feelings and experiences both past and present. Working through transferences as they arise within our therapeutic relationship will help you become more aware of the impact of past experiences and relationships in your life today. Being able to explore this openly, honestly, with curiosity and genuineness and without judgement is a fundamental relational aspect of the way I work.
As training material may arise within or alongside your own therapeutic experience, I am mindful of maintaining a safe and boundaried space. Therefore, I work with minimal numbers of counselling students from within each cohort across a range of training institutions. This helps me to support your counselling process impartially and without undue outside influence from others who you may be training alongside.
I offer a concession to trainee counsellors which is that the fee of £75 per 50-minute session is fixed for the duration of your training. This protects you from any interim fee increases (usually every two years) until you have completed your training and are qualified, which helps with planning your costs.
My location
We can meet for sessions online or by telephone. Numerous studies and NHS research has found online counselling and remote therapy to be just as effective as visiting a counsellor or therapist face to face. Some clients who can choose how to meet prefer online counselling because they find it gives them more flexibility and comfort.
Fees & availability
Fees
Counselling Session: £75 - 50 mins - Free 20-min introductory call
Supervision Session: £95 - 60 mins , £120 - 90 mins
Insurance
I am a recognised healthcare professional providing counselling services for major UK and international health insurance companies. I am registered with these Insurance Providers; AXA, Allianz, Aviva, BUPA, WPA, Vitality. Please ask about fees as these are slightly different to account for necessary admin and invoicing. Please let me know the pre-authorisation code from your insurer so I can invoice them directly.
Emergencies
If you feel as though you’re in crisis with your mental health, there are a number of things you can do to get the urgent help you need:
Dial 111 and select the mental health option to speak to a trained mental health professional.
Dial 999 or attend your nearest A&E department if:
- You have harmed yourself or another person
- You are worried about keeping yourself or other people safe
- You have or could act on any suicidal thoughts
- You feel out of control
Contact your local 24-hour NHS urgent mental health helpline if:
- You need to speak to a trained mental health professional urgently
- You are experiencing suicidal thoughts but have not acted on them
Make an urgent appointment with your GP if:
- Your mental health is getting worse and you would like to discuss immediate next steps
If you need to talk to someone urgently, call The Samaritans on 116 123 or https://www.samaritans.org (open 24/7).
National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK, call 0800 689 5652 or https://www.spuk.org.uk
999 in case of emergency
Please contact me to start to make positive and long-term changes to your life.
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