Jo Macrae
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
Being human is not always easy is it? Sometimes it can even feel overwhelming or unbearable?
Most of us experience this sooner or later in our lives, and that can lead us to search for a source of trustworthy support and guidance. Most likely that is why you’re reading this right now, and I hope this is where you will find the support that you are seeking.
Transpersonal counselling supports us to ‘step back’ and find a more expansive perspective that increases our resilience in the face of whatever is occurring in our life.
Increasing our understanding of how our personalities function is itself a helpful, some would say essential, step towards developing more effective flexibility in meeting life’s challenges and finding more acceptance for ourselves and others.
Transpersonal counselling goes even further, in guiding us to also recognise and experience ourselves as ever, present and unchanging awareness, a state of effortless ‘being’ where we naturally feel peaceful and safe. When we feel safer, we can view our personal experiences with a clearer perspective and more resourcefulness.
Training, qualifications & experience
- BSc Psychology
- Dip Psychosynthesis
- Dip Transforming Dialogue
- MBACP
For 40 years I have worked in the NHS, Social Services, Education, the voluntary sector and privately, offering individual sessions and group therapy, as well as training and supervision for other practitioners.
Over these years I have undertaken training in numerous approaches to counselling and psychology, including Psychodrama, Gestalt, Person Centred, Process Orientated Psychology, Transpersonal Psychology and most significantly post graduate diplomas in Psychosynthesis and in Psychology of Selves. Both of the latter approaches support us in differentiating the diverse elements that make up our personal sense of self, which shapes how we relate to others and our own life circumstances. They also both help us to begin the process of discerning the difference between the personal and the transpersonal self which is the core of our being.
As a registered member of The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, I abide by their professional code of ethics. I value open-hearted connection, non-judgemental communication, integrity and compassionate acceptance, all of which I bring to my counselling practice.
Member organisations
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
Free initial in-person, telephone or online session
Concessions offered for
Additional information
A one hour session fee is £55. Any donation above this amount contributes to a bursary scheme that enables me to offer some reduced fee support for people on lower incomes.
Frequency of sessions. I recommend weekly sessions for the first 4 at least, in order to begin to build trust and support a sense of continuity. After that, or if weekly is not possible for you, we can meet fortnightly and decrease that to longer times between sessions as you develop resourcefulness in yourself.
Cancellation Policy 48 hours notice is required to cancel a session booking, otherwise, the full fee will be due (except for exceptional circumstances).
Further information
It is not possible to tell you exactly what to expect from a Transformational Counselling session, as this depends so much on what you bring to the session and what comes to light during it. Each session is actually uniquely tailored to you and your needs at that time, rather than following a pre-set program, or any ideas that there is something wrong with you that needs to be ‘fixed’.
What I can say is that my role is to offer a non-judgemental space in which you can feel safe enough to explore both your current experience and the potential of some fresh perspectives.
A really important factor is what level of rapport we feel – in fact studies have shown that is the most significant variable affecting the effectiveness of counselling of any kind. So I invite you to book a free initial session, in person or online and see how we feel about meeting one another. We would use that time for you to tell me what is leading you to seek counselling at this time, and for me to answer any questions you may have about my approach to counselling.
