About me
Seeking counselling
If you're reading this, you may have started to question the ways you manage life and your reactions to it. Perhaps you are struggling with a specific issue, or just have a general sense that things aren't working as well as they could. Maybe you already know that more is possible, that there must be a better way to live, but don't quite know where to start.
You may be someone who thinks deeply about things. Perhaps you spend a lot of time trying to understand yourself, other people, and the right way to handle difficult situations. You might be capable and conscientious, yet still find yourself anxious, lacking confidence, struggling in relationships or feeling unsure about what you want next.
Sometimes you know exactly what you want help with. At other times, the starting point is simply a sense that something needs to change.
I work with a broad range of issues and particularly enjoy working with anxiety, confidence and self-esteem, relationships and family dynamics, neurodivergence, career development and periods of personal change.
I also have considerable experience of childhood trauma, domestic abuse and difficult relationships. My work in this area is especially suited to people who are no longer in immediate crisis but are trying to understand what happened, rebuild confidence in themselves and regain a sense of who they are.
Working with me
My approach is warm, thoughtful and collaborative. My intention is to understand your experience from your point of view while also bringing my professional perspective to help you see things in new ways.
I tend to be an active therapist. I won't expect you to sit opposite me wondering what you're supposed to say, and I won't simply listen silently while you try to work everything out by yourself. I ask questions, notice patterns, offer reflections and help you make connections between different parts of your experience.
Together, we might explore why you react as you do, the beliefs and expectations you carry, what happens in your relationships, how earlier experiences continue to affect you, and what happens emotionally and physically when you're under pressure.
Understanding yourself isn't about finding someone to blame, including yourself. We often have very good reasons for developing the ways of coping that we do. When those reasons become clearer, it becomes easier to recognise what still serves you, what needs to change and what you may need to accept.
For some people, this process includes understanding autism, ADHD or another form of neurodivergence. You don't need a diagnosis to explore this with me. I work well with people who are thoughtful and analytical, who may spend a great deal of effort trying to understand expectations, do the right thing or make sense of why apparently ordinary parts of life can sometimes feel unexpectedly difficult.
My work is also strongly interested in confidence and agency: trusting your own judgement, understanding what you need, communicating more honestly, making decisions and becoming increasingly able to shape your life in a way that feels right for you.
My therapeutic approach
I am an Integrative Psychotherapeutic Counsellor. Rather than expecting one therapeutic model to fit everybody, I draw mainly on person-centred, psychodynamic and somatic approaches according to your needs.
Person-centred therapy places the therapeutic relationship at the heart of the work and recognises your capacity to develop when you are met with genuine acceptance and understanding.
Psychodynamic ideas help us explore how earlier experiences and relationships may have shaped the way you see yourself, other people and the world around you.
Somatic approaches allow us to include the body in our understanding of emotional experience. This can be particularly valuable when anxiety, prolonged stress or trauma have created strong physical responses as well as emotional ones.
I may also draw on compassion-focused, solution-focused and other approaches where useful. What matters most to me is not applying a particular technique, but understanding the individual person sitting in front of me.
Starting counselling
You don't need to arrive with a perfectly organised explanation of what is wrong. Part of our work can be discovering what is happening and what you need.
Your first session gives us an opportunity to explore what has brought you to counselling, what you would like help with and how I work. It also gives you the chance to decide how you feel with me. Finding the right therapist matters, and you don't need to commit to ongoing work before you have had the opportunity to see whether I feel like the right fit.
I offer counselling in person in Hereford, Ledbury, and online.
Training, qualifications & experience
- Level 4 General Certificate in Online Counselling and Psychotherapy
- Member of ACTO, Association for Counselling and Therapy Online.
- Level 5 Professional Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling Practice.
- Level 4 Advanced Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling.
- Level 4 Diploma in Counselling Skills and Theory.
- Accredited Registrant Member of The National Counselling Society.
- Level 4 Diploma in Hypnotherapy and Counselling Skills.
- Registrant member of The National Hypnotherapy Society
I continue to have regular professional training and supervision in order to ensure you the client receive the highest quality service, including:
- Ethical practice
- General Data Protection Regulation
- Working with suicidal clients
- Grief counselling
- Trauma and the body
- Sensorimotor psychotherapy
- Healing power of metaphors
- Jungian active imagination
- Mindfulness
- Solutions-focused therapy
- Counselling and coaching
- Telephone and online counselling
- Counselling phone apps for clients
- Working with teenagers
- Counselling and faith
- Sexual addiction
- Personal Development
- Mindset & Career
Member organisations
school 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.
The National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society This Not For Profit association of counsellors and psychotherapists aim to support the counselling profession, members and training organisations. In 2013 the NCS register was accredited by the Professional Standards Authority under the Accredited Voluntary Register Scheme. Accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.
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
Other areas of counselling I deal with
Life transitions and personal change. Confidence and self-trust. Personal identity. Neurodivergence, autism and ADHD. Career development and progression. Family relationships and responsibilities. Caring for others. Rebuilding a sense of self after trauma or abuse. Chronic illness and recovery. Menopause. Empty nest. Retirement.
Therapies offered
Photos & videos
Fees
£60.00 - £95.00
Concessions offered for
Additional information
Standard counselling: £70 per session.
Hypnotherapy: £95 per session.
The fee covers a 50 minute session + 10 minutes admin. 24 hr minimum cancellation policy applies.
Limited concessionary places available.
If you wish to commit to longer term work, sessions may be invoiced monthly upon discussion of terms. 5% discount is available for advance monthly payments.
When I work
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Further information
Change, recovery and finding your way forward
One of the threads running through much of my work is helping people when an old way of living, coping or understanding themselves no longer quite fits.
Sometimes this follows an obvious change: the end of a relationship, a new career direction, illness, recovery from trauma, children growing up, menopause, retirement or changing family responsibilities.
At other times, very little may have changed on the outside. You simply begin to realise that the ways you have managed life until now are costing you too much, or that you want something different from the years ahead.
These periods can be unsettling, but they can also provide an opportunity to understand yourself more deeply and decide what you want to carry forward.
Rebuilding after difficult experiences
After childhood trauma, domestic abuse or other difficult relationships, reaching safety is not always the end of recovery.
You may still question your judgement, anticipate other people's reactions, struggle to recognise your own needs or find it difficult to trust yourself and others. Sometimes people describe knowing intellectually that the danger has passed while their emotional or physical responses seem not to have caught up.
My work is particularly interested in this stage: moving beyond survival and gradually rebuilding confidence, identity, relationships and a sense of ownership over your own life.
Emotional wellbeing and physical health
Our emotional and physical experiences are closely connected.
Prolonged stress, trauma and exhaustion can affect how we experience our bodies, while chronic illness, fatigue, pain or other changes in physical health can profoundly affect confidence, relationships, identity and our sense of what the future holds.
My somatic training allows us, where appropriate, to pay attention to bodily responses as well as thoughts and emotions. This is not about suggesting that physical illness is psychological, and counselling does not replace medical care. Instead, it gives us another way of understanding how your experiences have affected you as a whole person.
I also offer therapeutic hypnotherapy, which can sometimes complement counselling where someone wants to work more deeply with entrenched emotional or physical patterns.
Career, identity and direction
I particularly enjoy working with career development and progression.
You may know that you are capable of more but struggle to put yourself forward, feel uncertain about your direction, or have reached a point where the career that once suited you no longer does.
Career questions are rarely only about work. They can involve confidence, identity, values, relationships with authority, fear of failure, fear of getting things wrong or uncertainty about what you are actually allowed to want.
For some neurodivergent people, they can also involve recognising that the problem isn't a lack of ability but a mismatch between the person and the environment in which they are trying to succeed.
Counselling gives us room to explore both the practical decisions ahead and the deeper questions underneath them.
