Helen Cain

Hello and a warm welcome to my profile page.

Perhaps  you are looking for help to make sense of your situation or to adjust to a significant life change or loss? It's okay if you are feeling lost and don't know which way to turn. We can talk about finding a way towards a more settled and fulfilling life.

I am a UK-based registered and accredited psychotherapeutic counsellor. I practice both online and in-person and invite you to contact me for an initial free 25-minute call - to see if we would be a good fit working together. 

Working together

Our relationship, as client and therapist, will be fundamental in helping you make sense of things. You are preparing to share your struggles, fears and worries and so it's really important you have a sense that we could build a trusting connection. I offer you a calm, compassionate and safe space in which to gradually explore your story, at a pace that is right for you.

How I work

I hold a holistic view of our being, respecting equally the power of our mind and body to communicate our needs. My therapeutic approach focuses on our relationship with ourselves and the bonds we form with others. It explores ways of beginning to accept all our parts and welcoming the person we genuinely are. Talking therapy is central to my practice but I also draw on creative interventions such as grounding, visualisation and mindfulness when words are hard to find.

Research offers that talking to an experienced, impartial professional contributes to improvements in mental and physical wellbeing. I look forward to the possibility of our working together.

After your initial online or telephone consultation, my fees are £50 per 50-minute session.

Please see www.integrocounselling.co.uk for further terms and conditions.

Online counselling 

I adapted my therapeutic practice during the Covid-19 pandemic, to offer a meaningful alternative to face to face work. Having qualified as a certified practitioner to work online, I continue to off you the option of video and telephone sessions across the working week, some evenings and Saturday mornings.

Online work enables you to access counselling support at a time and in a place that is right for you. This may, perhaps, give you more possibilities to access support whilst also managing your existing commitments. 

Practice room - in-person therapy

I also have a quiet, village location practice room in rural Suffolk. This is just 15 minutes’ drive from Bury St. Edmunds. 

Both options offer you safe and confidential space to explore personal concerns or a particularly painful issue you may be facing. Many of us experience difficult emotions at certain challenging times in life, some of which are detailed below in terms of what I can help with.

What to expect

To begin, we will spend time talking through your intake questionnaire, your contract and counselling agreement. I will also invite you to share what brings you to therapy and to learn something of your hopes for the future.

In the early stages, I aim to create a sense of safety and trust. Where you can begin to tell your story, without judgement or expectation. I offer you kindness, patience  and encouragement. 

I believe we all possess the inner wisdom and knowledge to know what is best for us. But we can sometimes feel stuck between staying with what is familiar but no longer serving us and choosing a new and possibly unknown alternative. Becoming open to this is part of the process, it is a sign of change, but this is difficult to do alone. 

I will notice, reflect, gently wonder and steadfastly ‘sit alongside’ you as you observe and discover new, and sometimes painful truths. You have the capacity to re-write your narrative, find courageous new ways forward and separate your past, present and future. 

This takes patience and time to explore but offers a chance to find who you were meant to be.

How counselling works

Things can sometimes feel more difficult before they begin to improve. It can feel exposing, frightening, confusing, unknown, and ‘heavy’ in the depths of the work. Our bodies respond acutely to emotional pain, and it is not unusual to feel physically tired at the same time. You may even feel that you want therapy to end. At times there may be no words to communicate what is happening inside. And that is okay, we will find a way, together.

The process can feel ‘messy’, because we are human and there is no simple, one-stop solution to finding ‘our truth’. .

Moving towards healing

We begin to see ourselves differently, there is light and possibility towards the end. In therapy, we encourage you to ‘test’ out new ways of being, consider alternative viewpoints and listen to yourself. Because you know the answers.

You will know when it is time to end, there will be signs of healing. You are likely to have learnt to recognise your triggers and have developed an ability to replace unhealthy coping strategies with more helpful, healthier ones. You will probably have noticed you return to your normal state more quickly after a stressful experience. Perhaps you recognise feeling less shame and guilt, you are likely to notice feeling more settled and secure in your relationships. Asking for help and expressing yourself are all indications of a growing awareness of your emotional needs.

Counselling has the potential to empower, develop inner strength and encourage resilience. I believe it offers you a route to connecting with your true self, the person you were destined to be before life got in the way.

Governance

I work within the BACP ‘Ethical Framework for Counsellors’ and also the BACP Guidelines for Online Counselling and Psychotherapy. As we contract to work together, I will explain that the content of our sessions will not be shared with anyone else, except for the purposes of supervision of my clinical work, or in the instance of a disclosure where I believe you, or someone close to you, may be in imminent risk of harm.

At Integro Counselling, where I practice in partnership with Alison Chadwick, we are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Information you provide to us will only be used in accordance with the privacy statement available on our website. We hold a licence with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and our licence number is: ZA815346.

And finally....

I am married and live in the countryside with my family. Being in nature has always been my greatest source of peace and remains one of the cornerstones to my wellbeing. I grew up amongst the fruit orchards of Kent and still love nothing more than feeling free outdoors. This is my anchor, it keeps me grounded and helps me to be open and present.

A life shaping diagnosis brought me to therapy and to a career in counselling. I was a client long before I was a therapist, and know something of what it is like to feel broken, alone with pain and separate from a world that seemed to exist from a distance. I am a human being first, just like you, and welcome the opportunity to explore whether working together might feel right for you.