Aviva Wiser

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Psychotherapist/Counsellor/Supervisor MBACP Sen Accred UKRCP
Available for new clients
Available for new clients

This professional is available for new clients.

Elstree WD6 & Stanmore HA7
Available for new clients
Available for new clients

This professional is available for new clients.

About me

Welcome and thank you for taking the time to read my profile.

Who am I?
My name is Aviva Wiser. I am a highly qualified and very experienced integrative Psychotherapist, Counsellor, Supervisor, Educator, Trainer and Life Coach. I have twenty-six years of experience working with adults at all ages, couples, parents, mothers to be, adolescents, children and groups. I have worked with a diverse range of people with a wide range of difficulties and issues working towards lasting change and growth. My clients come from a variety of professions, cultural backgrounds and the full spectrum of sexual orientations.

I am a senior accredited psychotherapist and counsellor with BACP, UKRCP and ACPNL. I subscribe to the code of ethics of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy. Accreditation is a process of acceptance by the association after the therapist proves on a yearly basis that they have studied to a prescribed level and have a certain level of experience.

From my private practice I provide clinical counselling, psychotherapy and supervision. The therapy consists of both limited and open ended psychotherapy and counselling. After our initial meeting, which is there for you to see if I can get your needs met, see how was your experience of the session and if you can see us working together. It is also for me to assess and to see if I can meet your needs. After that encounter we will decide if we are going to work together.

At first we will agree to work together for an agreed number of sessions (between six and twelve sessions). Good results can be achieved. The open-ended way allows for the exploration of deeper matters and therefore it enables you to make more fundamental and deep changes.

Why Chose Psychotherapy and Counselling
Psychotherapy can help every individual and couple with whatever they are facing and can see them emerge stronger, more confident and more comfortable within themselves. Psychotherapy is a form of refuge from the world, a safe place in which your needs are attended and where you feel nourishment and contentment.

People often find the same problems happening again and again. You may not even know what is wrong. Often it can be that something does not feel right and that you might want to talk this through. People choose to embark on therapy for a large number of reasons:

  • Feel too overwhelmed to cope with life difficulties, life, relationships, children, work?
  • Feel confused, anxious, depressed and powerless or out of control?
  • Do you long to beat depressions or be free from anxiety?
  • Need to overcome an eating disorder, phobia or addiction?
  • Want to come to terms with emotional, physical or sexual abuse?
  • Wish to handle stress better or manage anger more successfully?
  • Need to overcome family break down, divorce, separation or bereavement?
  • Feeling lost, stuck or lacking purpose?
  • Are you at a point in your life where you have begun to lose hope of ever being happy again?
  • Have you experienced any trauma that you wish to work through?
  • Are you having difficulties surrounding gender identity?
  • Might you hope to realise your potential and live a life that is more free, more creative, more fulfilling or more autonomous?
  • Perhaps your relationship is not working out in the way in which you want or had expected?
  • Is your marriage or relationship at crisis point?
  • Do you have difficulties in maintaining a relationship?
  • Are you having an affair and don't know what to do?
  • Did your spouse or partner betray you?
  • Are you facing any illnesses or recovering from an illness?

How do I work?
From my private practice I offer you face-to-face I offer a confidential, non-judgemental, non-intrusive, safe and caring space in which you can explore and discuss personal issues and concerns. We will explore your current circumstances and how this impacts your personal life and other relationships in your life: partner, spouse, children, family, work, friends etc...

I foster a warm engaging and alive rapport with you. I value you and enter your frame of reference in full humanity and help you to uncover your own unique sense of meaning through collaborative exploration and by encouraging you to voice your opinion, thoughts, feelings and beliefs. This achieved with working mindfully with dreams, imagination, creativity, working with body, spirituality. Meeting you where I am using the holistic approach to support you to discover and find your own resources; where you can develop a better sense of yourself and others. Becoming more aware of your behaviour, beliefs, thoughts and feelings helps you to become more aware and more free to choose the way you want to live your life and the choices that are available to you. "Life is all about the choices"

This achieved by working mindfully, creatively and spiritually at time with your feelings, thoughts, body and dreams. I support you in problem solving, resolving conflict and finding out who you really are. You will find a new way to accept and relate yourself to others. This will help you to create the possibility of living and experiencing your life more positively. I help and support you to gain more insight and awareness which will help you to increase your sense of belief and trust in yourself. I help you to express what has been inexpressible and help you to find a meaning.

I also help you to awaken your heart and to learn to utilise its energy for your personal growth as I believe that this enables a much "deeper healing" to take a place.

My Philosophy
I believe that if you chose to pick up the phone, make the initial appointment and ask for help it shows that you are brave, courageous and are striving for a better and more positive life then what you have at the moment. My role is to help you explore your feelings and thoughts in order for you to gain insight and to promote your self awareness and support you towards accuracy, clarity and understanding.

My encounter with you is based on the principles of respect, empathy, genuineness, acceptance, and high regard. These in my belief are the core conditions to create growth, development and change within a holistic frame of reference, where the emphasis is on your wholeness. My passion is to assist your growth, development and change for you to reach a sense of well-being. Furthermore, it is to enhance your full potential intellectually, emotionally and mindfully in relationship, parenthood, friendship, work etc. in expressing life in a positive living.

I believe the therapeutic relationship is at the heart of therapy which is facilitated to your change. I am passionate and enthusiastic about my work. I love what I do. I continue to search, research and explore different aspects of living with my warm compassionate nature. With my alive rapport and being a very attentive listener; I am also enthusiastic and an energetic person in giving my support and help.

Therapies Offered:

  • Analytical
  • Bodywork and Breathing
  • CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)
  • Compassion Therapy
  • Existential Therapy
  • Humanistic Therapy – Gestalt, T.A (Transactional Analysis) & Person Centred
  • Integrative
  • Integrative for children and adolescence
  • Mindfulness
  • Psychodynamic
  • Spirituality
  • Transpersonal Psychology
  • Trauma and the Body

Where am I?
My therapy room is easily accessible by public transport or by car. There is unrestricted parking in my road. My practice is a ten minutes walk from Elstree and Borehamwood station which is on the Thameslink (or under its new name First Capital Connect). It takes 20 minutes to get to from Kings Cross station.

Since Covid, I have been working with clients from all over the world via zoom. For example, India, Florida, Antigua, Mexico etc...

I see clients from: Arkley, Barnet, Battersea, Borehamwood, Bushey, Bricket Wood, Edgware, Finchley, Golders Green, Hendon, Hampstead, Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead, Hartford, Kings Langley, London Colney, Mill Hill, Potters Bar, Radlett, Shenley, St Albans, Stanmore, Stevenage, Totteridge, Watford & Whetstone.

What Next?
Please feel welcome to call me to discuss your needs and concerns. I am more than happy to spend some time with you on the phone (for free) providing you with any additional information, which would help you to decide your next steps so you can make an informed decision.

If I don't answer personally please leave a message with your name and phone number. I will return your call as soon as I can.

I believe that there is no substitute for experience. The best way to see whether you would like to work with me is by meeting. By helping you to identify more clearly what is troubling you by exploring your goals and what would you would like to achieve.

Then you can judge how the experience has been for you, from a more informed position.

Training, qualifications & experience

During my professional life which I love. I have accomplished much training and experience within the world of psychotherapy and counselling. This helps me in gaining understanding of the different modalities within the therapeutic disciplines and helps me in using them in practice in my work with you.
I am up to date with the latest developments, research and knowledge within counselling and psychotherapy.

Qualifications Received
● Teaching Diploma
● Certificate in Analytical and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
● Certificate in Family and Marital Therapy Systemic
● Diploma in Transactional Analysis
● Diploma in Person Centred Counselling
● Diploma in Gestalt Psychotherapy
● Psychotherapy and Supervision
● Advanced Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy and Supervision
● Certificate in The Five Relationships in Psychotherapy and The Seven Levels of Discourse (Professor Petruska Clarkson)
● Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy
● Diploma in Marital and Sex Therapy
● Certificate in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
● Certificate in Coaching
● Certificate in Mindfulness in Relationships
● Certificate in Trauma in the Body
● Begun an MA conversion course In Integrative Children and Adolescence Psychotherapy and Counselling
● CPD Regular attending different workshops and lectures

Member organisations

Registered / Accredited

Registered / Accredited

Being registered/accredited with a professional body means an individual must have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by their member organisation.

BACP
British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP)

BACP is one of the UK’s leading professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy with around 60,000 members. The Association has several different categories of membership, including Student Member, Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP, Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Accred) and Senior Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Snr Acccred).

Registered and accredited members are listed on the BACP Register, which shows that they have demonstrated BACP’s recommended standards for training, proficiency and ethical practice. The BACP Register was the first register of psychological therapists to be accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).

Accredited and senior accredited membership are voluntary categories for members who choose to undertake a rigorous application and assessment process to demonstrate additional standards around practice, training and supervision.

Individual members will have completed an appropriate counselling or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but they won’t appear on the BACP Register until they've demonstrated that they meet the standards for registration. Student members are still in the process of completing their training.

All members are bound by the BACP Ethical Framework and a Professional Conduct Procedure.

Accredited register membership

British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy
Accredited Register Scheme

The Accredited Register Scheme was set up in 2013 by the Department of Health (DoH) as a way to recognise organisations that hold voluntary registers which meet certain standards. These standards are set by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).

This therapist has indicated that they belong to an Accredited Register.

British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy

Other areas of counselling I deal with

Co-Dependency
Dependency
Cultural Issues
Conflict
Isolation and Loneliness
Identity Issues
Grief
Guilt
Parenting Skills
Post-Natal Depression
Pre-Marital Issues
Redundancy
Shame
Spirituality
Transition
Woman Issues

Fees

Additional information

Fees can be agreed at the initial consultation. In certain cases provide health insurance can cover some of the cost or all of the cost of therapy.

Further information

Mothers-to-be
-Pregnancy and birth related issues
-Difficulties conceiving and termination
-Mother-Infant relationships (bonding, attachment etc.)

I gained lots of knowledge through my observation of babies, mothers and young children. My work is about supporting and helping to increase parenting capacity of a parent so you can create a positive impact upon the mental and emotional health of their children so they can help them to thrive and flourish. By facilitating and encouraging you to voice their ideas, opinions to express and explore their feelings and thoughts by entering, accepting, honouring, respecting and showing you compassion, support and care. All these help you to have more of a sense of belief and trust within yourself as a parent. Additionally  it will help you to feel empowered over your life and the life of your children.

Children and Adolescents
Before I qualified as a therapist I worked as a qualified teacher so I have a good understanding of young people and parent related issues. Young people have a depth of feeling, thoughts and sensations that they find difficult to share with family, friends, teachers etc. They usually can’t put those feelings into words and they need to have a safe environment and assistance in expressing and exploring these feelings e.g. fear, anger, anxiety, loneliness, sexual confusion, being through traumatic experiences in their life which they buried deep down inside them. It is important to teach them how to listen to their own feelings and to help them towards self nurturing by creating an environment where they can begin to accept their own feelings. They will start to feel much emotionally stronger within themselves where they feel more empowered in their own life.

Since the therapeutic relationship is at the heart of therapy and facilitating change. The most important aspect of my work is managing to create an environment of trust and safety. This is where I can facilitate building self-esteem in the young person towards an opportunity for success, a positive self image which promotes healthy growth and development. As a therapist I have to work hard to engage with the young person whom at times is neither a child nor an adult which has its own complications. Dealing with the adolescent’s paradox of complexity, wanting freedom and yet needing limits.

Children and young people who are troubled cannot flourish so it is crucial that they receive a loving, caring, supportive and safe environment in which to develop emotionally, which is the basis for their future health and their rightful path of life and growth.

Couples Therapy
I have special interest in supporting any couple who want to explore their compatibility and differences. Furthermore, those who wish to raise any issues of concern before they tie the knot. For couples that want to explore their compatibility and raise any issue before marriage commitment relationship therapy is offered to any kind of couple who wish to engage in it. I have experience in working with gay and lesbian couples as well as heterosexual ones.

For most people, the aim is to explore existing relationship to see if it can be improved or whether it has reached the end of its life. Often couples are at crisis point when the first come, often things have become difficult and messy.

Our early relationship and attachment with our parents can be crucial in shaping and moulding who we become and this can affect our behaviour and interaction with our spouse, partner and children unconsciously as well as consciously. In many situations by the end of therapy a couple may feel that they have re-established their relationship on a sounder basis than ever before or they may decide that their present relationship can't work well for them and they must go 'separate ways'.

Testimonials from previous clients
'Having engaged in the same unhealthy relationships throughout my life, I came to a point where I could no longer go on this way. I had seen 2 counsellors and a therapist previously, but this had not worked out. A friend brought me in touch with Aviva. Already from the first session I felt a great potential and my gut feeling proved right. Aviva is a highly experienced, skilled therapist with a sincere interest in her clients. With her unique person centred approach, her challenging curiosity (in a very positive sense), her profound insight in relationships and interpersonal dynamics and her thoughtful responses, she drew the best out of me. She guided me to face the most painful and hallenging periods of my life, to arrive stronger and more complete at the end of the journey, almost 3 years later. I worked very hard, but would have not been able to do so without her continuously encouraging support.' A.F

Elstree, Hertfordshire, WD6

Type of session

In person
Online
Phone

Supervision

In person

Supervision for Other PractitionersI am an experienced supervisor and offer clinical supervision for counsellors and psychotherapists at all levels: Trainees Fully established professionals .

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Aviva Wiser
Aviva Wiser