Catherine Noel

Are you struggling with low mood or feelings of anxiety and overwhelm? Do you have trouble setting limits, expressing your feelings or building fulfilling relationships with others? Do you hold yourself to unrealistically high standards and then become critical of yourself when you fall short of these standards?

Therapy can help you press pause on the overwhelm and give you a space to explore issues without fear of judgement.  In under an hour a week (online or in-person), begin making small adjustments that lead to significant changes.

Clients say therapy has helped them:

• Release limiting beliefs and outdated self-perceptions, allowing them to experience self-compassion instead of self-criticism
• Assist in processing past experiences, freeing them from repetitive thoughts and overwhelming emotions.
• Gain new perspectives and insights, revealing options that were previously hidden.

I work with clients who are struggling with life transitions such as bereavement, loss, job dissatisfaction or redundancy and asking themselves big questions about life and how to cope.

I also have a special interest in working with clients who struggle with feelings of loneliness or being unworthy of others’ time and attention.

Sometimes these feelings originate from a childhood where it was hard to make a meaningful emotional connection with one or both parents.   The parent will often have been struggling with their own issues such as trauma, abuse, neglect, money worries, health concerns or they may have had a mental health condition, or an addiction.  They may well have been doing the best they could, even though it was not a good fit for your needs as a child.

These feelings can also stem from a sense of being unable to conform to societal expectations, for example if you identify as neurodiverse as opposed to neurotypical.

Counselling may help you if some of the following resonate:

• You find it hard to be yourself around others
• You judge your value as a person by what you do for others or by the recognition you get (or don’t get) from others
• You feel inadequate, sad and alone a lot of the time
• You fear abandonment and this has led you to tolerate behaviour from others that you know deep down, isn’t right
• You have a harshly critical inner voice that speaks to you in a way you would never speak to a friend.
• You find it hard to identify your feelings and/or you may feel that displaying a strong emotion betrays a lack of resilience on your part.
• You defer decisions to others but can end up feeling resentful with the outcome and wish you had given more input.
• You feel conflicted about relationships with others, you yearn for a meaningful connection but feel wary or or find ways to avoid connecting with others.
• You are plagued by thoughts of what you “should” be doing or feeling and berate yourself for not conforming.
• You have a pervasive sense that you are doing something wrong, but you can’t identify what exactly.

Asking for help takes courage

It’s not uncommon to have concerns about starting therapy.  Perhaps there’s a part of you that feels like taking about yourself is selfish, or a waste of time - how can it change anything? 

But if you have been stuck with this issue for longer than you’d like, If you have been trying to manage alone but making little progress, maybe now is the time to try something different - things can change, lives do improve and therapy does help.

How I work

I started my private practice because I wanted to help people live fulfilling lives that fit well with their values and capabilities.  I noticed how easy it is, to get caught up in the day to day grind and operate on autopilot.  I believe this is a major source of anxiety because a part of us knows that life isn’t supposed to be hard all the time but we can feel at a loss to know what to do differently.   

I transitioned into counselling and psychotherapy from a corporate career in learning and development.  I have experience of trying to juggle full-time working with caring for children and all the attendant guilt and internal conflict that entails.

My work is informed by the following beliefs:

• A lot of what we think and feel ordinarily goes unnoticed, therefore part of my role is to encourage you to be curious about your internal experiences.
• We are complicated and it’s common for us to be subject to internal conflicts, therapy can help us explore issues where we feel “torn” or conflicted.
• There is often a message in our suffering/symptoms which when understood can guide us towards a more fulfilling experience.
• Our childhood shapes how we make sense of our world and how we make sense of world, shapes how we experience it, therefore it’s useful to give this some consideration as part of the work.
• We are all doing the best we can with the information and resources we have available to us at the time.

Please get in contact for a no-obligation, confidential chat to find out if I am the right therapist for you.

I work in a comfortable space in Tunbridge Wells, and also see clients Online*

*I am a professional member of ACTO (Association of Counselling & Therapy Online) and have taken additional training to work via telephone, video and email.

Getting Started

I offer a free 15 minute confidential consultation, if following that you would like us to work together, I charge £60 for a 50 minute session.

Our First Session

When you are feeling overwhelmed, anxious or distressed it can be hard to know where to start. In our first session, I will walk you through some questions to help us build a picture of the things that are troubling you. I work collaboratively with my clients to agree on the next steps and create the trust and safety which facilitates change. First sessions can be daunting but we go at your pace.