Joanne Aldred

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Please note: I've returned to in-person sessions for individuals & groups.

You may be questioning whether therapy can help relieve your distress, help you commit to life transitions or improve your overall mental wellbeing? Counselling can help with those issues and more.

Therapy is more than talking, it’s a relationship. You may have experience of ‘toxic’ or unhealthy relationships with others – or yourself. Which is why being met in a genuine relationship is the fundamental part of psychotherapy success. Accepting you for who you are, right now, invites a realness and confidence to explore the parts of you that you might have felt the need to reject.

You will begin to change & shift in ways you didn’t think possible, increasing your self-awareness with an understanding of your story and how you came to be you. Releasing the fear of expressing yourself or of hiding the aspects of you that cause pain or shame. Finding your voice within therapy so that you can use it in the wider world – in personal & professional relationships by asking for what you want & need in life.

I’ll help you cultivate curiosity around the potential that you hold. By being your authentic self and permitting your vulnerability to exist in the world, you’ll be able to confront life events & challenges in a way you might have never thought possible.

I'm Jo & I'm a Humanistic therapist, meaning my specialism is the human experience.

I am informed by humanistic philosophy, Gestalt, Person-centred and TA theory. I believe every person has worth, the right to autonomy (to decide their own future) and that a person should feel safe and secure in order to explore their sense of self. If a person is provided with the right conditions for growth, they'll always move towards change. I find the humanistic approach fits well with my own personal morals and values of integrity, honesty and empathy.

I'm also an EMDR practitioner.  EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing therapy and is a protocol driven therapy for working with single incident trauma, PTSD, C-PTSD & GAD (including OCD). It's a unique approach to accessing traumatic memories or beliefs about the self - by using eye stimulation (or bilateral stimulation such as alternating tones through headphones or handheld buzzers) it accesses the memory and then facilitates it becoming reprocessed and integrated in a healthy way.  EMDR has a faster pace, in terms of processing memories, thoughts, feelings and sensations than talking therapy which is one reason it's in both World Health Organisation (WHO) and National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines. Due to the nature of EMDR, the session durations and cost are different to talking therapy.

• I offer a free initial phone consultation in order to understand what has prompted you to reach out - the call also provides an opportunity to introduce ourselves to each other ahead of booking any sessions.

I look forward to speaking with you. A warm welcome awaits.