Clare Benjamin
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
Counselling with Clare
A Safe Space To Find Yourself
Hi, I'm Clare - a qualified counsellor based in Bristol, working to support you in taking a good look at your life, any difficulties you are experiencing and your ways of coping with these .
I understand how tough it can be to consider opening up to a counsellor, and will meet you with warmth, acceptance and care.
The reasons you are seeking help are very individual to you. You may be feeling stuck, overwhelmed by thoughts or feelings, struggling with low self-esteem or noticing an unhelpful pattern or past trauma coming up. Concerns that may be bringing you to counselling may include stress, anxiety, depression, family issues, or relationship challenges.
Your counselling can be a safe space to for us to explore together what's troubling you, and what you're wanting to change. As we begin to work together, my priority will be to build a relationship of trust and respect with you.
As an Internal Family Systems counsellor I can also support you in working with all parts of yourself and exploring how these may show up in your life - for example a vulnerable part, a part of you that copes and gets on with daily life, or a self-critical part. My background enables me to equip you with personalised, wellbeing tools to steady yourself through any tough times you experience or choose to look at, and creative ways to discover all the resources you have.
Accessing Support:
I am currently offering counselling sessions in person in my therapy room in Clifton easily accessible by public transport (train and bus) and with bike and car-parking nearby, and online on Zoom, and have some availability to see new clients.
Getting Started:
First, if you would like some support please don't hesitate to get in touch with me by email to book an introductory session, or - if you need more information first - please visit my website, or email me to arrange a phone chat.
Next, you can choose to book an initial online counselling session with me - either face to face or online, to get a feel for how we might work together and whether I am the right counsellor for you.
Then you can decide whether you'd like us to work together.
Your counselling sessions would be 50 minutes, and we'd tend to meet weekly. It will be your choice how long to have counselling for.
Some people want short-term counselling to look at one concern, and others want longer-term support to help get to the root of what may keep showing up.
What Counselling Can Offer You:
You might be seeking counselling as a way to make sense of your thoughts, feelings or experiences, or to look at your relationships, study or work.
In your sessions, we can look at any difficulties you’re facing, that may feel hard to resolve on your own, and at what it is that you would like to change.
Together we can start to build a sense of where you've come from and what brought you here.
We can also look at where you may be going, exploring what choices and coping strategies have been open to you so far, and what choices and coping strategies may be available now.
In our work together, I can equip you with personalised, wellbeing tools to help you to calm and ground, and creative strategies to access all the inner resources you have.
About my approach and working together:
My holistic approach means I will not see you as a set of symptoms or problem to be solved, but will help you to take a good look at your life - with respect for your unique experience.
As a relational and integrative counsellor, working in a person-centred way, my priority is building a relationship of trust, in which you can feel safe to share what you want to - at the pace and depth that’s right for you.
In this confidential setting, we can notice your needs and put them first.
As we explore what's brought you here, your voice and your story will be listened to, and heard. I will support and accompany you on your search to gain more understanding of your experience.
To help tailor sessions to your needs, I also bring in a way of working with the unconscious, and with parts of the self, as well as an understanding of attachment – that is our experience of early relationships with parents or caregivers, and of relationships now.
Together, we can explore whatever you are struggling with, discover what inspires and energises you, and look at how you want to move forward.
Training, qualifications & experience
Qualifications and Experience
As a qualified counsellor with an Advanced Diploma in Integrative Counselling, and a member of the British Association for Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP), I am committed to putting clients needs first.
My work also draws on my background in working for health charities, and in facilitating creative, therapeutic ‘Writing for Wellbeing’ groups in the community.
This experience allows me to support you by offering calming and grounding wellbeing tools for body and mind- including breath-work and visualisation - and ways to check in with yourself, to try out in sessions and practice at home.
We can also notice the creativity and insight to be found in your own unique ways of expressing yourself - be it for example through art, sport, or cooking - and including humour! I can offer you personalised creative ways of working in sessions, or prompts for home practice - such as for journalling.
My background also equips me to help you pay attention to the unconscious, intuitive wisdom to be found in your images, dreams, and bodily, energetic knowing.
Since qualifying, I have worked as a counsellor at low cost organisation Affordable Talk Bristol, and as a Specialist Mentor supporting University students, before setting up in private practice.
With experience of working with people from a range of class and ethnic backgrounds, beliefs, faiths, ages and sexualities, I respect and value difference within and between us.
I attend regular individual and group supervision and undertake ongoing Continuing Professional Development to help me better support people I work with - this includes training in Internal Family Systems.
Member organisations
BACP is one of the UK’s leading professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy with around 60,000 members. The Association has several different categories of membership, including Student Member, Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP, Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Accred) and Senior Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Snr Acccred).
Registered and accredited members are listed on the BACP Register, which shows that they have demonstrated BACP’s recommended standards for training, proficiency and ethical practice. The BACP Register was the first register of psychological therapists to be accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).
Accredited and senior accredited membership are voluntary categories for members who choose to undertake a rigorous application and assessment process to demonstrate additional standards around practice, training and supervision.
Individual members will have completed an appropriate counselling or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but they won’t appear on the BACP Register until they've demonstrated that they meet the standards for registration. Student members are still in the process of completing their training.
All members are bound by the BACP Ethical Framework and a Professional Conduct Procedure.
Accredited register membership
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
Other areas of counselling I deal with
Concerns I work with include:
• social anxiety
• relationship break ups; relationship & family problems
• attachment experiences
• noticing unhelpful patterns
• being overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings
• trauma in childhood or adult life
• bereavement and loss - including complicated grief
• times of change - at work and personally
• sense of identity and belonging
• faith or spirituality
• stress and burnout - for study, work or generally
• finding meaning and purpose
• body image and low self esteem
• developing tools for wellbeing
• finding your voice; creativity
Therapies offered
Fees
£65.00 per session
Free initial telephone session
When I work
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Please note: There are currently a few in person session slots available on Monday afternoons, and on Wednesday mornings and lunchtime. Please get in touch with me to discuss.
Further information
Therapies Offered
As a relational, integrative counsellor I draw on the following approaches to tailor our work together to your individual needs bringing a:
Person-centred focus - on working with what your priorities and concerns are
Existential commitment - to looking at what is important to, inspires and energises you
Gestalt approach - to working with parts of the self (such as a coping and a vulnerable part)
Psychodynamic understanding - of relational patterns, unconscious processes, and attachment
I also offer holistic and creative tools and techniques - both in sessions and for home practice:
Calming and grounding techniques to support wellbeing - such as breath-work and visualisation
Creative ways of working for example through image-work, dream-work, and prompts for journalling and reflection.
