Lucy Cavendish

ABOUT ME

I am a qualified counsellor specialising in adults, adolescents and couples.

COUNSELLING UPDATE
I am offering online counselling to anyone who needs it during these troubles times via Skype/Zoom/FaceTime/anything...
Nearly all my clients have gone online bar one or two - even the Imago couples are trying it out with me on Zoom but, as long as OTS therapy centre in Oxford is open and we all follow DHE advice, I am seeing clients there and will continue to do so for the time being. Obviously if anyone is ill, or I am ill or any member of our households are, we will all go online. But these are tricky times...
I imagine that many families might need some help right now or in the longterm. We are not used to being together for this amount of time without usual distractions - much good can be done but also many difficult feelings and emotions may arise. It is important we have support. My fantasy is a summer of play and fun and bonding and walking and talking - last chance before my children start peeling off in to their own lives (two will probably leave home next year). But maybe we will drive each other crazy.
And couples...sometimes these enforced periods of togetherness backfire somewhat...
So, I am here with all my own projections and thoughts from what to do when estranged families are forced back together? Or how do we look at and engage with our anxiety? How so we find kindess and empathy when we are frightened/nervous? Then there's the erotica around not being able to touch - and gloves? Don't get me started on gloves...like being in another era - a throwback..

I am also offering reduced priced counselling for those who need it and cannot afford full price - this is while the crisis lasts with a potential commitment to review payments once the shadow has passed which I accept may take some time....

During my work as a counsellor - and as a human being living in this planet right now - I have come to believe that there are just times when we need support and understanding from someone other than our close friends and family. It does not necessarily mean we are in crisis; it may be that we need a confidential space in which to talk, to be heard, understood and not judged. Sometimes, we may just want to sit in a room with another person - someone warm and empathic - and give ourselves a chance to think, maybe to speak, maybe just to be.
Why just survive when you could flourish?

HOW COUNSELLING CAN HELP

This is what counselling offers. It is a safe, contained space within which to explore, to move in to a better, deeper and more accepting relationship with yourself and others through the support of a trained counsellor who will be beside you and with you as feelings, thoughts and emotions come up. For me, as a trained counsellor with a Level 4 diploma in Advanced Integrative counselling, it's all about listening, thinking, working together in the room with what is going on outside the room but also inside the room. I work a lot with the feelings in the room. Integrated counselling means I have trained in psychoanalytic counselling as espoused by Freud, Jung et al as well as using a person-centred approach which means I deal with the day-to-day and immediate problems and challenges and look at what is happening for you now. I am aware that going in to counselling can feel momentous and many people feel nervous, worried and shy. My role is to help you through difficult times and to allay your fears and concerns and also to help maybe make tiny shifts so that things that appear maybe uncomfortable and insoluble become something that can be shared and worked through. It can be an illuminating journey we take together.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE FIRST SESSION?

I offer an initial session either in person or via the telephone, Skype or Facetime whereby we can discus your needs. We will look at what you think you would like from counselling, any previous experience of counsellng and whether there are any particular areas or issues you would like to focus on. We will get a clearer idea of what you might like to achieve and any outcomes hoped for. I will also explain how I work and we can get some idea of any other issues. It is important that you, as the client, feels that you have the right counsellor for you and that we can take a journey together.

MY TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE

Over the past three years I have been working as a counsellor with 11-plus clients at a youth counselling centre and I also work with adult clients on a longterm basis. I am available to see adults and children aged 11-plus as well as couples. I am trained in many areas of psychotherapy including psychoanalytic theory, person-centred techniques and also group therapy involving psychodrama and embodied psychotherapy including the theories and learnings around the Pesso Boyden way of working. I offer an all-round therapeutic approach and my areas of expertise are anxiety, depression, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, gender identity, panic attacks, mild psychotic incidents, suicide ideation, couples, adolescents, anger issues and support for couples at every level of their relationship including better endings. I have many clients post-separation and divorce who feel they need support when everything else seems difficult and tricky. I have also helped families who are struggling with a range of issues, especially often when their children reach the teenage years. Sometimes adolescents prefer counselling by themselves, sometimes with their families to work through what systems are in place that might need looking at.

SESSIONS AND COSTS

I am happy to work in person and potentially on Skype and Facetime. I am also happy to have an initial session in person or by phone to work out what a person potentially needs.
My sessions last for 50 minutes - an hour for couples - and the charges depend on where I am seeing my client. I work from my home in the Hambleden Valley, a beautiful place between Marlow and Henley on Thames. I also work in Oxford, Henley and London. I can offer other forms of therapy; walking therapy and floating therapy on a narrowboat north of Oxford.

MY PREVIOUS LIFE

I am also a writer who has spent the last two decades interviewing people and, in a working capacity, I have met a range of people and travelling the globe which, I believe, has helped me be a better and more broad-minded therapist who has lived a life. I will never stop studying as a therapist; I have just started exploring body-centred therapy which helps people access their deep feelings through their body and how they express themselves in and through their body.

My individual sessions starts from £80.00, couples from £120.00. Love coaching an dlife coaching start at £150 but there is an initial free phonecall/online session

I also see clients in Notting Hill in London and Oxford, Reading, Marlow, High Wycombe and Henley on Thames