Bill Swindlehurst - Registered Member MBACP (Accred)
About me
I support adults, and children and young people, in dealing with their difficulties by listening to them and helping them to make sense of their issues. These issues can be wide ranging and include depression, anxiety, low self esteem and stress.
Some difficulties might seem to be there in the background all of the time, or just flare up now and again. They sometimes just wear us down or even consume our waking life, leading to a sense of frustration, desperation or hopelessness. Being able to talk about these difficulties with someone in a safe and confidential space, someone that will listen non-judgementally and try to understand you, allows you to explore them without any pressure and get a clearer picture of your situation. I can offer you this, along with sensitivity, openness and honesty.
Training, qualifications & experience
My counselling training started in 2004 and I gained my Diploma in Counselling in 2009. I then gained my Diploma in Counselling Children and Young People in 2012 and then completed training in Couples Counselling. I gained my BACP accreditation in 2013. Prior to becoming a counsellor I worked with families as a Family Mediator. The situations I encountered in mediation encouraged me to train as a counsellor. I have worked with individuals for some years but my work with families has led me to build on my individual counselling and to expand my counselling work by training in Couples Counselling and counselling Children and Young People - whilst trying to maintain my Person Centred way of working and being. I now work as a counsellor with individuals, couples and children and young people.
I have worked as a Person Centred Counsellor since 2008 with people that have had depression, relationship difficulties, anxiety, anger issues, expressed suicidal thoughts, experienced bereavement or loss, been victims of abuse, experienced difficulties around their sexuality, and various other issues in their lives that have caused them to seek help. After gaining my Diploma I went on to work for a Post Qualifying Diploma in Counselling Children and Adolescents, then later trained in Couples Counselling. I have also completed training in Emotional Freedom Techniques.
Over time, contact with people from the LGBT community and the touching experiences I gained from a transgender training event have heightened my awareness of the difficulties faced by LGBT people, despite societal changes. As a counsellor who will work with gender and sexually diverse clients from an affirmative standpoint, I am registered with Pink Therapy.
I was a Registered Family Mediator with Relationships Scotland where I worked extensively with family issues. I helped couples who were having difficulties making arrangements about contact with their children, due to separation and divorce. I also worked with families who were having disputes that needed resolving.
Member organisations
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.
British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy
BACP is one of the UK’s largest professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy. Therapists registered with the Association fall into a number of different membership categories such as Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP and Registered Member MBACP (Accred), each standing for different levels of training and experience. MBACP (Accred) and MBACP (Snr Accred) members have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by the Association.
Registered members can be found on the BACP Register, which was the first register to achieve Accredited Voluntary Register status issued by the Professional Standards Authority. Individual Members will have completed an appropriate counselling and/or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but will not appear on the BACP Register until they've progressed to Registered Member MBACP status.
All members are bound by a Code of Ethics & Practice and a Complaints Procedure. Accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.
Accredited register membership
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.
Areas of counselling I deal with
Therapies offered
Fees
I can provide counselling sessions during the day and in the evening on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, should that tie in with your schedule. Each session costs £40 for individual adults. Sessions for children and young people cost £15. Couple counselling costs £45 per session. These fees are negotiable and I'll consider concessions for people who have difficulties in paying. Evening appointments cost a little more.
These individual sessions are usually face to face but, if Skype would be more convenient, then we could hold the sessions that way with the same privacy. Skype allows longer distance counselling work and is quite flexible.
Living near the bases at RAF Lossiemouth and Kinloss Barracks, I have a wide experience of working with military personnel and the difficulties they have encountered.
