Caroline Redmond

I work in the Stroud area and offer one-to-one counselling as a BACP Accredited Counsellor.  I aim to provide a warm, friendly welcome for you, so that you can move at your own pace, feeling safe.  I believe that counselling, even while we look at the difficulties, should ultimately feel good! So if you are ready to seek change, come and explore the possibilities...  

“The process of actually changing feels good.  Effective working on one’s problems is not self-torture ... it is natural to the body and  ...  it feels like a relief and a coming alive”.   (Eugene Gendlin)

I offer a free half-hour session to discuss what you might want, and a confidential place for you to explore how you are feeling, and to begin the process of discovering new ways forward.  Fully qualified and insured, I offer short or medium term individual counselling and psychotherapy, working in compliance with the BACP Ethical Framework.

It can be hard to imagine the possibility of change when you are feeling completely overwhelmed or in distress – but being supported in paying gentle and curious attention to your own underlying experience can be powerfully and quickly helpful.   First a new sense of spaciousness, then a few small changes, then a whole flurry of new feelings, and actions. You set the pace and the agenda – nothing changes when there is any feeling of demand.  As long as it is feeling good as we work, we will be going in the right direction....

I worked for Cruse Bereavement Care for five years, providing grief and bereavement counselling, as well as supervision.   I have also worked as a counsellor for the Gloucestershire NHS Let’s Talk Service (IAPT),  with clients struggling with anxiety and depression.  In addition to my private practice, I have provided counselling at Listening Post in Stroud,  and for a local G.P. surgery. Currently, I am offering both face-to-face and online sessions in private practice.

The foundation of the way I work is humanistic and person-centred.
The approach is based on a deep trust in our ability to find our own way towards growth and health, if given the right conditions. It respects the wisdom of our symptoms and our bodies, and seeks to enable and support, rather than to suppress or to change what is uniquely there. It puts the client in charge, not the therapist, so my role is to guide and help you as you work, rather than interpreting or telling you what to do.

I also draw on a focusing-oriented and experiential approach where it seems helpful. Focusing is a natural process that supports you in going beyond what you already know and creates a space to attend to feelings you may sense vaguely but cannot yet put into words.   A focusing way-of-being promotes easier self-acceptance and a solid trust in your own experiencing as a touchstone for your life decisions. This focusing type of inner attention has helped me profoundly in my own life, and it is reliable in supporting and enabling real and lasting changes for clients, in a short space of time.  

These approaches have been shown to be helpful with many of the concerns people struggle with, whether its family or relationship issues, dealing with separation and divorce, anxiety disorders, depression, postnatal depression or bereavement. It doesn't always have to be about negatives though - this kind of approach will also help you if you simply want to keep moving towards a different, more joyful way of living...

For me, one of the most extraordinary things that can come from counselling is the realisation that everything you could possibly feel is OK.  More than that, everything that comes up, the good, the painful and the downright ugly, is likely to be positively useful when you start to look at it in an accepting way.  So, there is no right or wrong, and in counselling there is no 'should'.  You can feel and express it exactly how it is - or say nothing at all, and just watch it all unfold for a while.  It's all up to you and it's all OK!

I welcome your enquiry.  Counselling is an effective but under-used resource at a time when so many of us are struggling. If you are not yet sure what you need, please phone and come for a free initial discussion.   It is important that you first feel fully confident we can work well together, if we are to get off to a good start.

Types of therapy:

Humanistic and person centred
Bereavement counselling
Experiential therapy
Focusing and Focusing-Oriented therapy
Individual Focusing sessions

Free initial half-hour session to meet and see if working together would be a good 'fit'.     

Sessions last for 1 hour, typically on a weekly basis.

Some concessions are available;  please ask.

The duration of counselling is different for everyone; we can explore what you would like together, and you can review this at any time along the way. You may simply want a session or two to work on something particular; or you may know that you need much longer. A common way of working is to agree to a certain number of sessions, say six, and then review how things are going at that point, and regularly thereafter. For a number of clients, around 12 sessions seem to be enough for substantial changes to have occurred. Some people may want many more, and others may choose to have a break for a while to let things move forward, and come along for another round of sessions later on.