We all face times in our lives when we feel we have lost direction or may be struggling with difficult decisions.  We can find ourselves repeating the same patterns or stuck in the same situation again.  We might feel dissatisfied with our relationships and feel like we can’t be ourselves.   Perhaps we have lost a loved one.  Our stress and anxiety may feel unmanageable or we could feel too low to face things we used to enjoy.  These things can happen at any age.

 

At times like this, it can help to seek support from someone.  The people in our lives aren’t always able to help us best because of their expectations of us and their knowledge of how we have been in the past and how they want us to be in the future.  Our fear of being judged or disappointing to others stops us being truthful about our feelings and thoughts.  We might not want advice or to hear how someone else dealt with a similar situation.  

 

Counselling offers the chance to be listened to attentively and supported emotionally, by someone who accepts you unconditionally.  It provides a caring, trusting and confidential space to share your feelings and work towards change.  This may be by talking or using play and creativity.  At the heart of counselling is the belief that we all have the ability to be true to ourselves and live fulfilled lives.  Humanistic counselling assumes that it is not events that cause problems, but how we experience them.  By understanding our responses to life’s events, we can change how we feel about ourselves and grow in acceptance of our own strengths and weaknesses.

 

In counselling, you are always in control.  It is up to you what you talk about, what you don’t choose to talk about and how many sessions of counselling you have.  You set your goals and the pace and we will work together to check out how you feel it’s going and what has changed for you.  Someone close to you may suggest that counselling might help but it is always your decision to come.

 

At the start, we will agree how we will work together.  This will include confidentiality, the number and length of sessions, how to contact each other and payment.  Whilst you can end therapy at any time,  I will ideally want some notice so that you can have an ending session that gives you the opportunity to reflect on your counselling experience.  This is equally important for children as it is for adults.

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For children and young people, as with adults, I will always put safety first.  Depending on the ability to understand the impact of choices, I will share different levels of information with parents/carers.  I will explain and agree this when we start the work so that we are all clear about the limits to confidentiality.

 

In the middle, the counselling or psychotherapy will be influenced by the approach that works best for you or your child, but research shows that the relationship with your therapist is more important than the methods we use.  

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Please get in touch to explore my availability and costs.  As an indicator, an average counselling hour costs £55 and we might work to six sessions initially and then review, before agreeing further sessions.