Daniel Leather

I'm Dan, a person-centred therapist and an accredited member of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society. With a post-graduate level education and years of experience with a variety of clients, I am available as a counsellor especially for those who consider themselves to be afflicted from traumatic events and painful grieving experiences.

I understand that we come to counselling when things don't feel right - we experience loss, a tragedy occurs, and it changes everything. Maybe you want to just back to how things were, and feel like you can't face leaving something behind or moving on. I want to reassure you that no matter how hard things might seem for you now, there is the potential for positive change and for you to feel better. Counselling can help you achieve a sense of coherence, and help you process and make sense of painful and difficult experiences. By helping you in your natural tendency towards becoming authentic in your sense of who you are, I will help you understand and resolve problematic emotions and feelings, moving towards clarity and acceptance.

I practice client-centred therapy, a unique counselling process characterised by respecting you as the source of change. My goal is in supporting you is to establish the optimal kind of climate and respond to help you lay out and re-examine your story, without being challenged by analyses that try to define your experience and fit you into the box. In our sessions together, you determine the direction and subject matter based on what you consider to be pertinent, and you are empowered in conducting your own personal analysis to help you reach your goals in feeling better.

Ethics is at the forefront of what I do, and feeling better from client-centred counselling is a process that feels very natural, and the intensity is always determined by you as your right to alleviate contact with distressing memories is always respected. The complex process of cognitive reframing, carefully processing experiences, and altering our sense of identity and perception takes place seamlessly by engaging in a process of honest expression and exploration of what you feel is important to address.

I understand that addressing complex experiences may require counselling over a longer-term period, and to help support clients I offer these block payment structures to accommodate longer term counselling arrangements:

• A block of 3 counselling sessions over 3 weeks for £100 (£33 per session)
• A block of 5 counselling sessions over 5 weeks for £150 (£30 per session)

Client-centred counselling is about leading from behind, where you are the agent of change. My function is to provide you with the space where you can unfold the narrative of your life in an authentic way, completely free of judgemental interference. It's about tapping into an innate self-healing capacity, that we might not feel like is there at times.

The most valuable thing I can provide for you in counselling is the opportunity for you to be heard, and pass ownership of any meaningful direction of change over to you. When this takes place, a psychological shift begins in which the troubled frame of mind starts to change. This is the message of the humanistic psychologists: that people grow, mature, and go through constructive changes when they are received and validated in their own right, and it is the way in which I receive you.

So, how does it go? To provide the opportunity for your own insights to occur, I impose no goal or expectations onto you from my personal point of view. There are no demands to be in a certain way, or make you feel a certain thing because of my own ideas. Instead, total attention goes to understanding you as accurately as possible, so you have the space to really see yourself as we flow through what’s happening for you. And if you're hesitant to touch on a topic, or feel the change is too much, that's ok too. You're respected in this way by not being propelled forwards - whatever you consider to be appropriate or not for the session is of utmost importance. Whatever you decide to bring into the session forms the content, and I am prepared to listen to anything you have to say. I follow your direction, and you are free to look at whatever you decide is important to you.

Key features of the counselling that I offer:

. Strong ethical principles guide the client-centred approach that I deliver in counselling. It means you are protected in that harmful effects of improper/dubious counselling practice is taken seriously and eliminated, and your right to self-govern is respected at all times.

. My practice is values-based and not skills-based. I believe the client-centred approach to be the best way that I can help another, and because of that my behaviour is consistent and principled. This means that I don't think one thing, and do another.

. You’re not my patient that I’m treating. You’re a person attempting to find a way to resolve psychological distress. This is a universal phenomenon for us all, and that you are making contact with me for help is met with compassion.

. I'm a therapist you will enjoy working with if you don't need to be challenged, and feel that some counselling techniques out there, such as the empty chair technique, are inappropriate for you. I have the patience to give you the freedom and space you need to go at your own pace.

. There is no borrowed strength or unearned knowledge that you will arrive at in counselling together with me. It is my objective to create the conditions in counselling where you arrive at your conclusions and realisations as a result of your own processing, which you take with you when you end counselling. It's an approach that is empowering to you.