Claire Quinn

Hi, My name is Claire.  How are you feeling?

Are you feeling anxious, worried or stressed? Perhaps your mind races, your legs sometimes turn to jelly and your heart feels like it is going to pound out of your chest. Or do you feel down, depressed, lost? Is your sleep, concentration or appetite affected? Perhaps you’ve no motivation and feel tired all the time. Do you feel like you’re going around in circles and don’t know how to help yourself? Perhaps you try to cope by pushing things to the back of your mind or distracting yourself in the hope that things will get better?

The trouble is, keeping all that distress to yourself means that you carry the weight of it on your own and that can feel like a very lonely and hopeless place to be.  

Whether you’d describe yourself as suffering from Depression or Anxiety or your distress is something else entirely there is hope!  If Anxiety associated with feeling not good-enough or chronic self doubt is the issue, please see below on EMDR as a treatment.

I can help.  

I've been a therapist for 10 years now, and in that time I have helped hundreds and hundreds of clients with all kinds of difficulties. 

All you have to do to get started is text, email or call me to book a free initial session.  This way you can talk to me about what you need and decide whether I’m the kind of person you feel you would like to work with.  Whatever you are struggling with I will offer you a safe space to talk about and explore your thoughts and feelings and what you feel you need from counselling.  In this first free session you’ll gain some much-needed relief and be able to plan a way forward.  

About me

My name is Claire and my background is in Psychology.  I have a wealth of knowledge, training and experience in different therapies and am able to draw on this to tailor the work we do to your personal, specific needs. My knowledge and experience are valuable but my approach is relational and at my core I’m a Person Centred Psychotherapist.  I

In a nutshell Person Centred therapy is about the therapeutic relationship between me, the counsellor, and you, my client. Through building a safe, trusting therapeutic relationship with me you will be able to explore your distress and gain invaluable insight into yourself and your life world and explore and develop opportunities for growth.  

Being a Person Centred therapist means that I do not see distress as an 'illness', 'disorder' or something 'wrong' with you.  I believe that people often struggle and develop psychological and emotional difficulties because of life experiences and events and the meaning they attribute to these events. 

The Person-Centred approach to counselling/therapy sees people as unique! There is no 'one size fits all' approach with this approach because we all interpret the world around us differently. 

This means that as a Psychotherapist, I don't see myself as 'expert' of your experience, instead I give you the space to explore your own experience and meanings and I definitely won’t ‘analyse’ you or tell you what to do. Instead, I will help you to reflect on and explore your life and experience in a non-judgemental and empathic way. This approach is very empowering, it helps you to develop self-awareness and a basic trust in yourself which are hugely beneficial life skills.

It works

I have worked with literally hundreds of clients and each one has told me the relief they feel at being able to talk freely and openly without fear of judgement.  I believe they feel this way because I value them as individuals and provide safe,  non-judgemental care that my clients can trust to help them explore their experiences, understand themselves more deeply, make positive changes, take control of their lives and better cope with whatever life throws at them in the future. 

I believe that Wellness comes from processing experiences in the presence of a supportive trustworthy therapist.  This enables people to be honest with themselves and curious about their experience which in turn leads to self-understanding, self-awareness and self-trust.  Through knowing yourself more deeply and feeling supported and heard you are able to  negotiate life’s challenges and work with me to develop your own toolbox of skills to take back your life.

Getting started

Call, text or email me to book in a free initial telephone/webcam session.  

What to expect

At the initial session we will have 15-20 minutes to talk through what you would like help with.  During this time, you can ask me any questions you may have and you can also get a feel for me as a person and whether you feel you would like to work with me.

There is no obligation to go ahead and book a session at this stage.  I’ll ask you to think things over in your own time and get back to me if you want to.  But, if you want to book in straight away that’s OK too.

Next steps

If you decide you would like us to work together then either call, text or email me to book in a session.  At this first session we will decide together what you want to work on and take it from there.  

What to expect from counselling

Counselling allows people to discuss their problems and any difficult feelings they encounter in a safe, confidential environment. The term can mean different things to different people, but in general, it is a process people seek when they want to change something in their lives, or simply explore their thoughts and feelings in more depth.

A counsellor, or therapist, is not there to sit you down and tell you what to do. Instead, they will encourage you to talk about what's bothering you in order to uncover any root causes and identify your specific ways of thinking. They may then look to create a plan of action to either help you reconcile your issues, or help you to find ways of coping.

Therapy isn’t always comfortable, or easy.  It can take great courage to investigate the patterns that hold us back, and move beyond them. As part of the process, therapy often involves bringing things ‘into the light’, sharing with another person events from our history that might be hard to face, or we have run away from. To do that takes time, commitment and courage, as well as trust in the therapist and the strength of the therapeutic relationship.

How many sessions?

Some people feel that all they want is a couple of sessions to explore a particular issue. Others prefer longer term therapy.  It is up to you, you can decide whether to attend a one off session or weekly sessions or fortnightly sessions.  You can also decide whether you would prefer fewer sessions (time limited therapy) or more sessions (longer term).

Sessions usually last 50 minutes but can last up to an hour and are priced at £60.00 per session.  EMDR is priced at £70 per session

I also offer EMDR.

Although I offer EMDR for any difficulty clients need help with I have a specialism.  My specialism is in working with and empowering women to overcome anxiety associated with chronic self-doubt, feelings of being not good enough and enabling them to step into their unique potential.

What is EMDR?

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. It is a therapy used to help people recover from distressing events that include emotional, physical or sexual abuse, abandonment, neglect, criticism, teasing, bullying etcetera.  EMDR alleviates the problems these distressing events have caused, like flashbacks, upsetting thoughts or images, depression or anxiety, low self-esteem, negative inner chatter.  EMDR was initially developed to treat PTSD but is extremely effective for a range of other difficulties such as anxiety, low self esteem, feelings like imposter syndrome etc.

EMDR is recognised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

My EMDR package

I now offer EMDR packages to empowering women to overcome anxiety and negative mind-chatter associated with chronic self-doubt and feelings of being not good enough to enable  them to step into their unique potential. 

Get in touch  if you are open to the miracle of the minds own natural healing power and are willing to try an approach that tackles your issues at their root.  

Cultivate a stronger sense of self-worth.  Shed light on and obliterate the limiting beliefs, self-doubt and associated anxiety. Silence the negative inner critic that tells you all the reason’s you’re not good enough and can’t have the life you want. 

My unique approach harnesses the brains own healing mechanism.  I use a combination of Psychotherapy, Coaching and EMDR  (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing ) to eliminate issues at their root.  

EMDR in particular is a powerful NICE/NHS approved therapy that eliminates issues at their root.  Together we identify and dissolve the deep hidden, often subconscious, beliefs that undermine your self-worth and pull against your conscious goals.

The past is always present

Adverse life experiences create memory networks that operate, like auto-pilot, out of conscious awareness.  These maladaptive memory networks shape how we view the world and ourselves throughout life and cause us to adapt and behave in certain ways, we lose touch with our inner wisdom.  

These memory networks form our identity and leave us with a lesser sense of self confidence, self-worth and self-efficacy.  Like a perceptual filter they cause you to develop a narrow and limiting view of yourself and the world and keep you from living to your full potential.  As a result, you stay small and don’t dare step out of the familiar rut.

To add insult to injury, in order to keep you in that rut, you may have developed a ferocious inner critic that nags, demands, second guesses you, casts doubt, judges you harshly and compares you negatively with others    This inner critic keeps you in the familiar misery of chronic self-doubt and feelings of not being good enough.   

Gradually you come to believe the inner critic and stop hearing your true self that knows how limitless your potential is.    Together we can help you to develop awareness of and attunement to your own inner wisdom, which you have been conditioned to ignore, censor or discount and as a result you are kept small and play small in life,

Does this sound like you?  If so I can help.

Almost all human psychological and emotional suffering is caused by these maladaptive memory networks and the subsequent alienation from the true self and its promptings.  

This suffering might show up as feeling – anxious, depressed, worried, not good enough or unworthy,  a nagging self-doubt, needing and seeking approval or validation,  worrying what people think of you, difficulty internalising your success, over preparing for things and fearing failure, self-sabotaging, people pleasing, fear of being found out as lacking in some way,  feeling valued only for what you do rather than for who you are as a person, holding yourself up to impossible standards, feeling self-conscious, insecure, fear of exposure, feeling ‘bad’ about yourself, feeling vulnerable, avoiding being in the lime light or applying for that promotion, the list goes on and on.  And what’s worse, no amount of  success, positive feedback or reassurance changes how you feel and view yourself.

These ‘symptoms’ are labelled variously as  imposter syndrome, low self-esteem, anxiety, worry, depression, performance anxiety.  Whatever the label, at the root, the cause is the same, the tenacious maladaptive memory networks and alienation from the true self.

To get unstuck you need to work with me to identify and transform the underlying beliefs by targeting specific emotionally charged memories and then eradicate them for good.  And this is my specialism.

Here is where I can help

Most therapy helps you understand how your blocks to living your best life were created, but they still leave you stuck.  I can help you both understand your blocks and get you unstuck!

I offer bespoke therapy package based on cutting edge neuroscience and a tried and tested approach that is backed by mountains of research.  My approach eliminates the old memory networks;  it won’t erase the past but it will erase the emotional impact that the past has left on your nervous system.  

The old beliefs and subconscious conditioning that have been colouring your view of yourself and the world – GONE!   A part of you already knows you are capable of and worth more than you have been getting, let’s put that part of you in charge.

What to expect

Our sessions will be tailored to your unique needs and presentation and will involve exploration of your difficulties and goals.  We’ll look at your life history to inform our treatment plan and complete some preparation work using the infinite power of your brain to give you inner resources of safety and empowerment.

Once we have co-created a treatment plan I’ll guide you to identify key memories to target with EMDR and then the magic begins.  Together we will map out different elements of the target memory/memories and we’ll begin processing each one in turn.  

During re-processing I’ll start by asking you person to recall in your mind the memory while you also move your eyes from side-to-side, hear a sound in each ear alternately, or feel a tap on each hand alternately. These side-to-side sensations are called bi-lateral stimulation (BLS).  BLS  effectively stimulates the “stuck” processing system in the brain so that it can reprocess the information more like an ordinary memory, reducing its intensity much like REM sleep.

The effect is proposed to be similar to what occurs naturally during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, when your eyes move rapidly from side to side as the brain processes the events of the day. Some research suggests that EMDR is effective because concentrating on another task whilst processing a distressing memory gives the brain more work to do*. When the brain is not giving its full attention to processing the memory, it starts to become less vivid. This allows the person to distance themselves from it and begin to remember the event in a more helpful and manageable way.

I have and academic background in Psychology and  10 years  experience working in Mental Health. I have worked for the NHS both as a Low Intensity CBT therapist, an Assistant Psychologist and a Counsellor/Psychotherapist. I was completing a PhD but decided to discontinue this to enable me to focus on my clinical/therapeutic work with clients.

My qualifications are as follows:

Masters Degree in Counselling and Psychotherapy (Distinction)
Postgraduate Diploma In Psychology (Distinction)
Batchelors Degree (with hons) in Psychology (First Class with Hons.)
Postgraduate Certificate in CBT
I am also a trained Brain Working Recursive Therapy Practitioner and a Certified Rewind practitioner
Postgraduate training in EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (to process traumatic/distressing experiences).

How to find me

I work from my comfortable, private therapy room in Howbrook, Wortley. Therefore, I am within easy reach of Rotherham, Barnsley, Wakefield, Doncaster, Sheffield and Leeds areas.

I am a member of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society and adhere to their ethical framework. 

Relational Trauma

My current fees are £50 per 'therapeutic hour' which is between 50 and 60 minutes per session. 

EMDR is charged at £70 per one hour session 

I am registered with Aviva and able to work with clients via this insurance provider.

I offer face to face sessions and also work via Microsoft Teams and telephone