How I will work with you

My approach to our counselling relationship is to be present, genuine and supportive of you and the personal growth journey you are about to undertake. I have a calming manner but I also bring creativity and compassion to your issues. I will support and help you by providing a safe confidential environment where you can understand yourself better without judgement. We will work together to enable you to feel more equipped to deal with life's challenges so that you can live in a more fulfilling way.

Choosing the right counsellor for you is vitally important. For therapy to be effective you need to trust your counsellor and feel comfortable talking and sharing with them. By carefully listening, I intend to fully hear your reality of the world around you and how it affects you. In working in the "here and now" in the sessions together we will explore your good and bad experiences both outside the therapy room and inside the room and within our relationship.

How we'll work together

I will offer you challenges to your limiting beliefs where appropriate if they seem to affect you detrimentally and try to mirror back your perception of reality in order that you may grow by questioning your thoughts, beliefs and behaviours, choosing to change or simply to find peace in self- acceptance.

I believe that it will be the quality of our honest and trusting therapeutic relationship, which will offer you support and chance for self-contemplation, enabling you to re-connect with the potential within you, unhampered by negative beliefs and doubts.

The better you can be clear and honest with each other, the better therapy.

My core philosophy

My Person-centered and Humanistic background means I genuinely believe you hold the answers to what you need to find your full potential in your life. Therefore, I will meet you genuinely and openly as human being to human being in a real, approachable and supportive relationship.

My primary focus is you and your unique strength and resilience; in my experience I know that some part of you will know how to use the space best for your own growth and healing. I believe you are the professional and expert of your life and issues and not the other way around.

I believe in our human ability to make choices in our life but understand that people can feel disempowered or unable to do so, so my work may also explore potential choices and finding meaning to live your life as you desire it.

My integrative approach

My training is Integrative which means that I am familiar with a wide range of psychotherapeutic approaches and psychological theories. I can draw on different approaches to counselling, as and when we feel them to be most beneficial to you at different stages in your therapy and in our relationship.

However, my primary focus is you and your unique strength and resilience; in my experience I know that some part of you will know how to use the space best for your own growth and healing.

My strengths are particularly working with Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, mindfulness and Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), but these are far from exclusive approaches, and the prerequisite is still the quality of our counselling relationship.

You can read more about the full range of approaches and training I draw upon on my How I can help you page.

Short and long-term counselling

I offer short and long-term counselling therapy. This will be explored when we meet for the initial assessment to see if we are both happy to work together.

After an initial 6 week working agreement, the work can be rolling if we both feel it to be mutually beneficial. I am also happy to work with goal setting and solution focused therapy where required and appropriate.