How I work

What Kind of Counselling do I Offer

I may have mentioned it elsewhere on my website but just to be safe, I offer what is known as Pluralistic Counselling. In short this means I focus on collaboration and ensuring that you always have the lead say in how we work and what we work on. I will flexibly incorporate tools, techniques and ways of working from Person-centred, Psychodynamic and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. If these terms are unfamiliar to you that's ok, as we work together and discuss your concerns I will also share with you my thoughts, help you to explore yours and offer potentials techniques and the relevant explanations for them. If you would like brief examples, I give a rough idea of how we could work on some common issues further down.

What to expect from the first session

Beginning in counselling can at times be quite daunting so after contacting me would arrange out first session. This first session is unique in that it will focus more on us, what has led you to seek counselling, your feelings around counselling and any previous experiences with counselling. The purpose being to set the stage for the work ahead and to give you the opportunity to share with me exactly what you hope to achieve, what concerns you may have and to decide if you would like to commit to working together. I will also use this session to go through confidentiality, cancellation policy and payment information just so that we're both on the same page. Lastly we would explore ways in which we could explore your concerns and set some goals to work towards.

Bereavement and grief

If you’ve recently suffered such a loss, or find yourself struggling to manage your grief, then we can explore this by looking at your history with loss. How previous loss have affected you and the views you've built around it. I often use William Worden's four tasks of mourning when I work with grief. Beginning with building acceptance of the loss, and what this means to you and your life. We would then look at ways to process the pain and appropriate times to do so, allowing you to pick times to feel the pain but allowing you time to carry on with things you want to do. Later we would look at ways for you to reorient yourself to your new life without that person while also finding ways to remain connected to them. As although they're no longer here, they're still important to you.

Who I work with

Who I work with, anyone over the age of 18, regardless of gender, sexuality or age I will work in a way that is congruent, empathic and fully considering your views on your concerns and how you wish to address them. We may not be of the same generation, ethnicity or sexual orientation, but I will work from your frame of reference, from how you are feeling and seeing the world. Offering acceptance and support to you as the unique individual you are.

Online counselling

Alongside face-to-face sessions, I also offer online sessions. Which we can do exclusively or mixed in with face-to-face sessions. Though working in this way would require you to have a suitable Wi-Fi-connection, a safe private space in which you can attend these sessions, and ideally a camera. We show a lot in our body language, and being able to see and work with this would greatly facilitate the counselling process. If you're interested in working together remotely just let me know and we can discuss it in more detail.

Relationship concerns

Relationship concerns are very common due to the complexity of people and our needs to connect. In exploring your relationships together we would look at your views around them, what is happening in them, how these ideas may be affecting you and where any distress may stem from. We can further explore these in terms of your self-esteem and in caring for yourself. We will also have the option to look at the relationships you have experienced throughout your life to better understand the dynamics in your relationships now and why they may have formed into what they are and how to change these to have more fulfilling, equal relationships. There is also the option to incorporate CBT if you find you think yourself into arguments or maybe Transactional Analysis to explore why miscommunications maybe occurring and alternate ways of looking at your interactions with others.

Anxiety

Working with anxiety can be done in many ways, depending on the cause of the anxiety. CBT techniques are often highly effective by exploring the ways you think about what causes your anxiety, and the anxiety itself. By understanding the roots of these thoughts and your beliefs behind them, we can look to alter these beliefs and thoughts. With the goal of altering your perception of your source of anxiety from something threatening to something manageable. Alternative, we could explore the roots of your anxiety and past events that have led to you seeing the source of your anxiety as threatening.