Helping you
How my counselling can help you.
Counselling is an opportunity to be listened to without judgement or agenda, and feel valued for the unique person you are.
How
How counselling can help you
I offer a safe space to explore your past, present, and future, and how to make the positive changes you want going forward
Counselling is an opportunity to be listened to without judgement, prejudice or agenda, and to feel valued for the unique person you are.
You don't need to have the right words before you get in touch. If something is affecting how you feel, how you function, or how you see yourself, that is enough. Counselling isn't reserved for crisis points or diagnosed conditions. It is for anyone who wants a space to think, feel, and be heard without having to manage the impact on the people around them.
My role is not to affirm or validate everything you bring, it is to help you examine it. That means I'll listen without judgement, but I won't simply agree with every conclusion you've reached about yourself or your situation.
Genuine therapeutic progress often comes from being willing to question your own feelings and thoughts.
Issues
What sort of issues do I help with?
The reasons for coming to counselling are varied, but some of the more common reasons my clients seek help are:
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Boundary issues & assertiveness
- Building a sense of self
- Confidence
- Difficult life events
- Emotional issues & pain
- Low mood
- Low self-esteem
- Overcoming blocks to future success
- Stress
- Relationship problems
- Unhelpful thought patterns
- Unwanted habits and behaviour patterns
- Upsetting or traumatic experiences
In all cases I use an integrative approach, meaning I draw on several different approaches than can be useful in different circumstances and at different times.
My modalities
What pluralistic means.
A pluralistic, or integrative, approach simply means that there is no single way of dealing with your issues.
Different approaches will land more effectively with different people, or even the same person on different days. I draw on several ways of approaching your issues ("modalities"), and I bring whichever serves you and your circumstances best at the time. These include:
Person-centred
The bedrock of my approach is the belief that you are the expert on your own experience, and that just being heard, understood, and accepted can be an end in itself.
Psychodynamic
This means exploring how your past is showing up in your present. Patterns, attachments, and thought processes that have become ingrained in your life over time.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
Practical efforts to unpick the loops between thoughts, feelings, and actions. Especially useful for anxiety and reframing negative thoughts and experiences.
Other Benefits
There are other benefits therapy can bring.
Aside from addressing the issues that have led you to counselling, additional benefits you might experience include:
Enhanced self-awareness
Each of us has blind spots around our attitudes, behaviours, and ways of relating.
Our sessions are likely to help you to become more self aware, often leading to healthier relationships.
Understanding patterns
you begin to see themes that have run through your life, often from a very young age. Exploring the relationships and events in your life can help understanding of why you function in particular ways, and how that could change.
Catharsis
Having the opportunity to express feelings in a safe, private, and non-judgemental space can be very liberating, and this is one of the major gains in any good counselling relationship.
Meaning
Therapy may help you to attach new meaning to your life, and to see even traumatic events in a different light.
Challenging thinking habits
Sometimes our thinking styles become habitually unhelpful. Therapy should help you to identify patterns that are making your life harder, and help you to consider if you might like to work on these ways of thinking about the world.
Self help
More reading
For more information about the benefits of talk therapy please click any of the links below.
- https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/talking-therapies-medicine-treatments/talking-therapies-and-counselling/benefits-of-talking-therapies/
- https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/drugs-and-treatments/talking-therapy-and-counselling/about-talking-therapies/
- https://www.bacp.co.uk/about-therapy/we-can-help/
Ready when you are.
A free 30-minute call just to see if I'm the right fit for you. No pressure, commitments, or obligations.