Helen Zaman

“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”

As a person-centred counsellor, I offer you a warm and accepting presence, valuing your individuality and unique experience of life.

I bring you a broad therapeutic range spanning trauma, anxiety and depression, life changes, loss, work difficulties, stress, life changes and personal growth, as well as a richness and diversity of professional experience gained over 20 years as a Senior Accredited, Registered member of BACP. I am a Registered Provider of Counselling and Psychotherapy with these health insurance companies: Aviva, AXA Healthcare, BUPA, Vitality and WPA.

I offer an initial phone conversation where we can talk, and discover whether we are a good match for working together.  After thinking this over, if we both decide the answer is yes, we would go on to book a first session, and thereafter, meet each other on a regular basis. I offer short, medium term and long term counselling according to your needs. Please do get in contact and I can let you know about appointments that are available.

I work from rooms in Marple easily reachable by car, by train and by bus.

Unexpected gifts of insight often happen when you are working on something in counselling with me. My style of working helps you to discover how you truly feel about your everyday experiences, and it supports you in making the connections between how your life is in the here and now and how it may link to the past. You'll have the space to consider why your life has become the way it is, and how you would see it in your mind's eye if you could be leading the kind of life that was much more 'you'.   You may want to move from a state of disconnection from yourself to a state of acceptance of who you are, and who you can become.

My style of working, my philosophy of counselling, comes from believing that you are a person of worth – both in the times you want to grow and change, and in the times you don’t, when a day under the duvet may beckon.  I’ll be here to listen to you and honour you when you are struggling with yourself, the choices ahead of you, or the opinions of others – the times when all your instincts are telling you to tread an unknown path.

It is when you are in a relaxed state of being, in a peaceful setting that you can speak openly and freely about your life, and just 'stumble across' absolute jewels of insight into why and how things have felt like this for you in your life up until now.

As human beings, we often discover something precious when we begin to see our very same life, but with different eyes. So it was for the Queen of Naples when she found the relics of Pompeii under a backyard garden she was pottering in. The same happened for a Bedouin boy who found the Dead Sea Scrolls while he was looking for a lost goat. The demands of daily living may have obscured your treasures. Talking together in counselling, we can come to know the hidden jewels of strength already within you, and how to use these in the future.

I am a Registered Provider of Counselling and Psychotherapy with AXA, BUPA, Vitality and WPA.

£60 for a session lasting 50 minutes, this is the fee that applies for private clients

AVIVA, AXA Healthcare, BUPA, Healix, Vitality and WPA Registered Provider for Counselling and Psychotherapy - funded sessions are available if you hold a policy, or your employer provides your healthcare insurance with these companies.

For counselling and psychotherapy students in training, reduced rates are available.

My background includes roles as a trainer in counselling, and creating and managing counselling services. I have several years experience of running counselling services for people who are carers, as well as trauma work, running a Rape Crisis service for adult survivors of rape and survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I have also counselled young people who were survivors of trauma from the genocide in Congo and Rwanda.

I have worked as a visiting lecturer at Chichester University, teaching Year 3 undergraduates in Humanistic Counselling about racial diversity. I am spiritually aware and welcome clients’ beliefs to be discussed in sessions.  I also bring my experience of working with gay men and lesbians to my practice.

I have supervised trainee counsellors, accredited and experienced practitioners, M.A. students and tutors of counselling, as well as supervising for the voluntary sector, business and the helping professions.

I now supervise and counsel in private practice and update my work with wide reading and professional workshops throughout the year.