Dawn Clifford
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
Hi; I'm Dawn, and my aim is to provide a warm, empathic, confidential and safe environment for you to talk. Working through and exploring your difficulties, and supporting you to find a way forward.
How counselling can help
We all have times in our lives when difficulties and emotions overwhelm us. Talking and working with a counsellor can lead you to make positive and sustainable improvements in your life and relationships, and I am passionate about offering you a totally non-judgmental supportive relationship in which you will feel safe and respected. I am totally committed to each and every single client I see, ensuring that they are listened to, and feel heard, perhaps for the first time. I walk alongside each client, allowing them the time to see the dead wood that no longer is of value to them, and allowing them that space and time to see the path that is safe, the landscape that is clearer, so that they can walk with their head held high, and, eventually, feeling freer and lighter, and having a sense of freedom, which will enable them to thrive.
Flexible Appointments
If necessary, I provide sessions out of normal working hours.
Training, qualifications & experience
I describe myself as an Integrative counsellor, drawing on a range of therapies, Person-Centred, Gestalt, Transactional Analysis and CBT, having had a wealth of experience in mental health.
I work with anxiety, intergenerational trauma, unresolved childhood issues, low self-esteem, depression, and pre-birth grief and loss, narcissistic traits, and narcissistic personality disorder. I also work with clients through the grieving process, which can be an actual death, or an ending of a relationship, or a loss of any kind, as, during this time, the landscape has changed, and each person grieves at a different pace; It can come out mentally, or show as physical symptoms.
I also continuously train with scientific evidence for trauma-informed practice, and intergenerational trauma.
Pre-birth grief; Every mother or father will grieve differently. Thinking about Counselling can be a huge hurdle to overcome, but when the time is right, talking with someone who is professionally qualified and trained, and allows you that space to unpack the devastating emotions, and to be able to express yourself, to know that everything is confidential, and that you can speak your truth, can be so freeing within itself. Talking through the experience with a Counsellor of your choice, possibly about the apprehensions and confusions of future pregnancies, or not, may also allow you to feel slightly lighter. I am not taking anything away from, or diluting the effects of pre-birth grief, because, from the moment we know, we are a mum, and it's a baby. If you feel that the time is right for you to unpack your emotions, thoughts and feelings, please contact me, or another Counsellor.
I, like many others, have worked through the unprecedented times of COVID, and I know that it has been a period that has brought up a lot of unresolved issues for people, going right back to the child-self, feelings of anxiety due to uncertainty, feeling out of control, loneliness and a sense of isolation. When we explore these feelings, it's a rollercoaster of emotions, but, ultimately, we wish to come out of these times with more resilience and self-awareness. Counselling, again, can give you the space, and time, to allow yourself to unpack the thoughts and feelings, hopefully to go forward with resilience, hope and a landscape that you can change to your advantage, with time.
I also work with a lot of clients that have been traumatised, their self-esteem eroded, and who question what is their reality, which obviously would be a question asked when we have been love-bombed, isolated from friends and family, or questioned, or policed as to where they are, and why are they there, which would erode even the most confident of people.
We feel that we can fix these people, but they can be extremely manipulative, and make their reality question your reality, but we have light once we see the patterns, and can eventually go forward to selecting healthy friendships or relationships. We have to acknowledge that this is Trauma, and the thought of trusting anyone again will never happen, but, with time to be heard, and listened to, and believed, without re-traumatisation, each and every person can eventually find their true self. It takes as long as it takes, but is worth the journey.
In addition, I feel privileged to work with a registered charity, Mid-and North Powys MIND.
I feel very strongly about the work that I do, and, therefore, continual professional development is an extremely important tool. I have trained with the Beresford Centre on pre-birth Grief and Loss, and now feel privileged also to be an Accredited Member of the Foundation for Infant Loss.
I also continuously develop my practice with intergenerational trauma and trauma-informed practice, having trained on this with the Association of Psychological Therapies.
I work under the guidelines of the BACP's Ethical Framework, with regular supervision. I not only find supervision a vital tool, but find my own personal counselling an asset too."
"Family dysfunction rolls down from generation to generation, like a fire in the woods, taking down everything in its path until one generation has the courage to turn and face the flames." (Terry Real)
"You are worthy....."
"What happens does not define you....."
"You are not your trauma....."
"You are allowed to celebrate the fact that you survived....."
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
Therapies offered
Fees
£45.00 per session
Free initial telephone or online session
Concessions offered for
Additional information
I can offer you a free 15 minute initial consultation.
£45 per 50-minute session.
I can offer face to face, telephone or on-line support counselling, and I hope you will find that I am most flexible with appointment times.
Just ring 01597 850284, 07890 739920 or email
When I work
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