Dawn Aitchison

Verified Professional task_alt Verified Professional
Verified Professional

Every professional displayed on Counselling Directory has been independently verified by our team to ensure they have suitable credentials to practise.

MBACP (Accred) Creating Space Counselling and Supervision
Limited availability
Limited availability

This professional is accepting new clients but may have a waitlist. Please enquire with them directly to discuss availability.

location_on Helston, Cornwall, TR12
Limited availability
Limited availability

This professional is accepting new clients but may have a waitlist. Please enquire with them directly to discuss availability.

About me

Are you facing challenges and in need of a friendly face and a listening ear? I can offer you a warm and supportive relationship and a safe space where we can discover together the potential you hold inside, that will enable you to grow and find your own way to move forward in your life.

It is my experience that the person centred approach, with its emphasis on creating a warm, lively and supportive therapeutic relationship, where you are the expert on yourself, can bring about effective change and enhance wellbeing.

I am an experienced Person-Centred Counsellor and Supervisor living on the Lizard peninsular in Cornwall.  I have been in private practice now for over ten years and I have completed more than 4,000 counselling hours. I see private clients - adults, adolescents and children, at my home in Mullion, near Helston.

For me counselling is:

  • A safe space where what you bring is treated with respect and confidentiality.
  • A non-judgmental space where you are seen and accepted for who you are.
  • A creative space where you can encounter yourself and become more intimate with your thoughts, feelings and meanings, enabling you to find your own way to move on with your life.

During counselling I will:

  • Listen to you, accept you for who you are, and be honest with you.
  • Treat you with respect regardless of your race, religion, sexuality, disability, age, class or lifestyle.
  • View the counselling session as ‘your space’ where you choose what you want to focus on and how you would like to work; this could include using visual images, drawing, painting, clay, collage, sand tray, writing, music, movement or working outside, if you find this helpful.
  • Encourage you to set your own goals for counselling and work towards them, reviewing progress over time.

WHY COUNSELLING? 

Usually individuals choose to have counselling because they are experiencing difficulties and distress in their lives. Sometimes people can be isolated but at other times, even where an individual has the most supportive family and friends, they can find it difficult if not impossible to explain why, for example, they may be feeling anxious and or depressed. Or it may be easier to talk about personal, family, or relationship issues with a person who is independent of friends and family. Other life issues and events which can be very difficult to deal with include bereavement, divorce, redundancy, health issues, bullying and so on. However, you do not have to be in crisis or on the verge of one, before choosing to have therapy. You may be experiencing underlying feelings of dissatisfaction with life in general, or be seeking balance in your life and spirituality. All of these reasons and more will bring individuals to therapy (BACP website).

My Private Practice

As part of my private practice, I work two mornings a week as a school counsellor in a local secondary school where I support students as well as the pastoral team, teaching assistants and TIS practitioners.  I also offer EAP work for the Schools Advisory Service, 

Previous therapy work

I have worked as a Person Centred Creative Arts Therapist for CLEAR - a Cornish charity that supports children who have witnessed or experienced domestic abuse. I have also counselled for Cornwall Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre, worked as a student counsellor at Cornwall College, for a low cost counselling agency providing support for adults in the Camborne area and volunteered as a support worker for Penhaligon's Friends, a local childhood bereavement charity.

Supervision

I am a qualified clinical supervisor. If you are interested in supervision, particularly if you want to explore your practice creatively, please click on my supervision profile at the bottom of the page to find out more.

Personal and Professional Development Group - Using Creative Arts in Therapy

This is a group for student, newly qualified counsellors or experienced practitioners who are interested in incorporating creative media in their practice. Please click on my supervision profile at the bottom of the page to find out more.

Training, qualifications & experience

My training and qualifications

I am fully qualified with a Diploma in Person Centred Counselling and Therapy and am an Accredited Registered Member of the BACP (the professional body representing counsellors and psychotherapists). This means that I adhere to the guidelines laid down in the BACP ethical framework and have regular supervision. I also hold a Post-Qualifying Diploma in Counselling Adolescents and Children, a Certificate in Somatic Attachment Therapy and Certification in Complex Trauma Treatment (1). I am fully insured, registered with the ICO and DBS checked.

My therapeutic experience

I have experience of working with adults, young people and children on a variety of issues including:
anxiety, depression, bereavement and pre-bereavement, bullying at school and in the work place, self-harm, post-natal depression, pregnancy and birth, parenting, relationship difficulties, intrusive thoughts and OCD, sexual, emotional and physical abuse and neglect, suicidal thoughts, domestic violence, trauma, living with long term illness and disability, CFS, fibromyalgia, learning difficulties, work-related stress and redundancy. I also have personal experience of living with chronic pain.

During the course of my professional training I have completed:

  • Grief Training - Level 1: The theory of Childhood Loss and Grief
  • Grief Training - Level 2: Therapeutic Skills and Practical Applications of Theory
  • West Cornwall Women's Aid Domestic Violence and Abuse awareness training
  • Cornwall Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre 20 week course
  • NICAMB Advanced Master Program on the treatment of trauma
  • Online Therapy Institute- Moving your practice online
  • Application of the Polyvagal Theory (PVT) in Counselling & Psychotherapy 10 week course  
  • Inner Relationship Focusing                                                          
  • Internal Family Systems 
    informed practitioner                               

I have also completed Continuing Professional Development in:

  • FGM awareness
  • Mind and Body together - Emotional Wellbeing training
  • Training in understanding dissociation and complex dissociative disorders
  • Depth of play training - using Sand tray to experience symbolism and metaphor in play
  • National Autistic Society training - Women and Girls on the Autism Spectrum 
  • MindEd - elearning for professionals working with children and young people
  • ASIST - Applied Suicide Intervention Training
  • Suicide and self-harm - Working safely and ethically with clients at
    risk
  • Using Creative Arts online
  • Creatively Connecting with your Inner Child
  • Polyvagal Theory - Integrating the body
  • Using the Here & Now in Supervision

I qualified with a BA Hons. Degree in Fine Art with Qualified Teacher Status from Warwick University in 1992. Before I trained as a counsellor, I spent twenty years employed as a primary school teacher. I believe this experience has given me valuable insights into what it is like to work in a challenging environment; highlighting how vital the act of creating space can be for wellbeing. I create space in my life through singing in a choir, playing and listening to music, walking, gardening, painting and glass making.

I hope I can help you to express your creativity in a way that is meaningful for you so that you can bring about effective change in your life and enhance your wellbeing.

Member organisations

school Registered / Accredited

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.

BACP
British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP)

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

British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy
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.

British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy

Areas of counselling I deal with

Therapies offered

Photos & videos

Fees

£45.00 per session

Concessions offered for

  • check_circle Low income
  • check_circle Students
  • check_circle Trainee counsellors
  • check_circle Unemployed

Additional information

I charge £45 for an hour session. This allows me to provide some very low cost counselling spaces for those in receipt of benefits or on a low income.

When I work

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
Morning
Afternoon
Evening
Night

I am available to meet week days between 10am and 5pm and will try to fit you in at another time if this is not suitable.

Further information

Please contact me by email or the contact form on my website. I will then get back to you as soon as I can to arrange an initial consultation, if that is what you would like.

Our initial session will set out what I can offer and what you are looking for; enabling us to find out if we both feel we can work together. Sessions are weekly, at a regular time, last for an hour and are available for as long as you want to come. We will review our work together regularly so that you can decide if further sessions will be helpful.

Mullion, Helston, Cornwall, TR12

Type of session

In person
Online

Types of client

Children (0-12)
Young people (13-17)
Young adults (18-24)
Adults (25-64)
Older Adults (65+)
Groups
Employee Assistance Programme

Key details

DBS check info

In England and Wales, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS, formerly known as CRB) carry out criminal records checks for individuals working with vulnerable groups, such as children. To find out more, visit gov.uk , or contact this professional directly

Online platforms

Zoom
FaceTime
Whatsapp

Supervision

In person
Online

I see supervision as a shared endeavour. My approach is Person Centered and Integrative using the creative arts. See my supervisor profile for more...

View supervision profile

Dawn Aitchison
Dawn Aitchison