Denise Lyall
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
You may feel something is holding you back from living a more meaningful or fulfilling life, I can help you with this through compassionate understanding and insight. I have over 20 years experience of working with adult individuals and couples struggling with a variety of problems and issues, whether they be personal, family or work related. I am a Registered and Accredited member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy. I am also an EMDR Europe trained practitioner (Level 4), which is a NICE, WHO and NHS approved therapy for trauma.
My trainings are founded primarily on psychodynamic and psychoanalytic concepts, which means that I believe our early life experiences and relationships have a profound influence on our capacity to build and maintain relationships in later life. It can also impact on our ability to endure different or difficult life events and changes that inevitably unfold. Psychotherapy of this kind helps to resolve personal suffering through compassionate, close exploration and understanding of ourselves and how we interact with the world around us.
My clients often present because of thoughts, feelings and behaviours negatively affecting their everyday life; they may be unaware of the root cause. By shining a light on the past as well as the present, we can begin to discover and recognise how old patterns of beliefs influence our present-day perspectives and situations. Increasing self-awareness in this way can encourage a process of personal insight, growth and change. This provides an opportunity to experience and manage life in more fulfilling ways.
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is one of the most significant developments in the treatment of psychological developmental and emotional trauma related conditions. It complements psychodynamic theory very well.
This transformative approach enables overwhelming emotional responses to the traumatic experience to be processed efficiently, in order to be come an ordinary memory with an ordinary emotional response. Examples of single event trauma experiences include: a motor accident, mugging, domestic abuse, sexual assault, rape, spiked drink, difficult childbirth, shocking medical experiences and diagnosis, loss including bereavement, stillbirth, miscarriage, abortion, separation and divorce.
When a person has been subjected to ongoing trauma, as in child abuse/neglect or domestic intimidation or violence, that could give rise to complex trauma. Abuse or neglect in childhood that has significantly affected normal psychological, emotional and social development may be referred to as developmental trauma. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or Complex PTSD may be diagnosed after certain kinds of traumatic events when symptoms have been ongoing for longer than one month. Delayed onset PTSD is also possible.
Finally, in my view, it is the unique qualities of the counselling relationship that is critical for new awareness and change to occur in a safe and useful way. I therefore encourage a relationship with my clients based on mutual commitment, respect and trust. I offer an open-ended number of appointments which allows you to decide the content and pace of our time together.
Training, qualifications & experience
- Over 20 years experience in providing counselling or psychotherapy to adults in a variety of settings. I worked in technology and business prior to retraining as a therapist.
- Staff Counsellor at the University of Edinburgh since 2008 providing short term counselling.
- Private practitioner providing open-ended psychotherapy for over 15 years.
- Registered and Accredited member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy.
- Continual professional development is a requirement of BACP Accreditation and amounts to a minimum of 30 hours per year – I have therefore completed many in depth training courses in a variety of disciplines since qualifying in 2006.
- Post Graduate Diploma in Counselling Studies, University of Edinburgh 2006 - psychodynamic and person centred approaches studied.
- Clinical Applications in Couples Counselling, Scottish Institute of Human Relations - a psychoanalytic approach to couples therapy. 2009. Quarterly study meetings attended on an annual basis since training completion.
- EMDR Trauma Practitioner - EMDR Europe Level 4 training completed 2022 - as recognised by NICE and WHO and currently used in NHS settings.
- Member of the EMDR Association UK.
- Fully insured.
Member organisations
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 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
£85.00 - £100.00
Additional information
Standard sessions are 50 minutes in duration.
Individuals: £85
Couples: £100
EMDR: £100
EMDR sessions are 50 mins but can be up to 90 minutes if agreed beforehand. The latter is charged for on a pro-rata basis.
When I work
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