As you are considering coming for counselling, I’d like to give you some information about what happens “in the room”.

Firstly, counselling is NOT…

• me telling you what to do with your life or how you should ‘be’.
• me deciding what kind of person you are from the beginning of our conversation – then treating you like that.
• me making a judgement or diagnosis about your ‘obvious condition’.
• me agreeing with your side of things just to make you feel supported and affirmed.
• a quick fix. Usually the length of the therapy course depends on the intensity of what is bothering you and how much processing/work you do between our sessions.

None of the above will be happening. However, what I can guarantee is that throughout our times together, I will:

• help you to feel safe whilst you decide to talk to me about the things that are troubling you.
• often tell you how much I understand about your life and feelings, based on what you have brought to the session.
• help you to make sense of your life and its events without condemning you or anyone else involved in your life story.
• ask you to consider a variety of alternative viewpoints about your thoughts, emotions and feelings. This often leads to insights [lightbulb moments] that suddenly show you what you need to know but could never quite get to that point. I passionately believe that our answers to our questions are inside each one of us – if only we know the way to them.
• help you to understand the science behind some or all of those thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions.
• give you tools to help you in all manner of troubling situations.
• even help you to keep going in a variety of different ways when your narrative [story] gets stuck and you feel bogged down or isolated because of what you are sharing.
• give you permission to decide how deeply and broadly you want to explore issues that are afflicting you. Many of us throughout our lives have been oppressed or hemmed in emotionally. We have been denied the time, space and grace to voice our feelings and emotions. This is why we often need permission and the encouragement to get to the bottom of things – get to the heart of the matter.

… AND … once we know and understand the hows and the whys, and the whens and the whats of what happened, we then have the knowledge and the power to choose. To choose to change.

THEN, I will work with you to support you in your chosen change of you being new!

To be in counselling may be the most difficult decision you have ever made. However, it might also prove to be the most positive and long lasting change, leading to becoming the refreshed and renewed person who you always wanted to be.

If you would like to discuss the possibility of counselling, please fill in this form as a first step: