Debbie Inkpen (MBACP)

About me

Taking the first step to talk to a counsellor about your thoughts and feelings can feel daunting but equally it may be something that you have been thinking about doing for a long time and feel that the time is right for you now.

In the busyness of our lives we may spend more time and energy focussing on our physical health and not always be aware when our emotional health may need a little more of our time and attention too.

Sometimes we can hold on to our worries or put them to one side whilst we try and get on with our day to day routines feeling that we don't want to bother anyone or hoping that our problems will go away.

Negative thoughts, feelings and experiences can affect how we go about our daily lives. This in turn can affect our mood, behaviour and impact upon our relationships and other areas of our life. This can lead to feelings of anxiety, stress, depression and low mood.

The person-centred approach

I am a person-centred counsellor and use an integrative approach in counselling sessions. This means that I draw on my training and knowledge from different modalities and theories when working with clients.

In being person-centred this means that you choose what you want to talk about. I will work with you in a non-judgemental way offering you the core conditions central to person-centred counselling of empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard.

How I will work with you

I will work with you at your own pace, offering a calm, safe space for you to explore your worries and concerns no matter how big or how small you think they may be. Together we can work to make sense of difficult thoughts and feelings and unhelpful patterns of behaving in order to help you move forward to find your own answers and way of being.

I believe that through talking things through in a therapeutic relationship with a counsellor we have the ability to find our own solutions and to make sense of the things that have been troubling us.  I will work to help empower you to make the positive changes that you want in your life.

My experience

I have been working therapeutically and peripatetically with a mixed client base of adults, children and young people for over 15 years in a variety of settings which includes schools, in the home and in the wider community.  This therapeutic work has involved working collaboratively with families and working with children and young people in individual 1:1 sessions.

I have been seeing clients at The Banbury Therapy Centre for over three years where I also worked for the Children's Voice service within Oxfordshire Family Mediation. The Children's Voice service offered counselling support to children of families who were going through a separation or divorce.

Below are some of the issues that I work with:

Depression, stress and anxiety

Isolation, loneliness, feelings of loss

Self- harm, suicidal thoughts

Relationship difficulties

Work related stress

Domestic abuse, emotional, physical, sexual abuse

Family issues, divorce and separation

Parenting issues

Bereavement and loss

Cancer

Children and Young People

Children and young people do not always have the words or language to express what they are thinking or feeling and will often express themselves non-verbally in their behaviour and mood.

They may be experiencing stress and anxiety for a variety of reasons which for example may relate to  problems in school with their peers, disruption in home life such as a family break up, loss of a close family member or change in family dynamics such as the arrival of a new baby.

Some children and young people struggle to adapt to change and transitional periods in their lives such as starting in a new class, change of teacher or moving schools.  These factors and life events can all play a part in how they impact on a child's emotional well-being.

My training in Counselling Children and Young People through the organisation TICPlus (Teens in Crisis) covers all the necessary BACP competencies to counsel and work with children and young people. Working with this young client group can involve working more creatively to help them express how they are feeling which can include using creative techniques to help in the counselling process.