Karen Harrisskitt (BA Hons, MBACP)

Hello, my name is Karen. I offer a trusting, warm and open environment to work therapeutically with you and share a space which provides you with an opportunity to talk in confidence and without judgement. I understand that at times, life can put pressure and strain on anyone and we can struggle to have clarity of thought when things become overbearing.

Working with a counsellor is a helpful experience when you are facing difficulties that may be impacting on your life, relationships or wellbeing. I can offer you support to work through those difficulties. I am a Relate trained Couple Therapist, have experience in working therapeutically with couples, individuals and children. I am able to offer flexible appointment times.

My approach combines psychodynamic, systemic, mentalization, mindfulness and play therapy for children, this means that I can draw from a range of different types of therapies to best support you the client(s) to understand your current situation and how this may be impacting on you. Together, we can explore how you can learn to accept things or make adjustments to move forwards.

I work with individuals and couples for many different reasons, my approach is to draw on the modality which suits your needs best, in a confidential, calm, empathetic, sensitive and respectful way. I am trained and experienced in phone and webcam counselling, both very effective ways of working.

The support I can offer, provides a route towards processing loss, building coping strategies, working through difficulty with trust, self-esteem, connection, dysfunction, hurt and anger.

When we want something to change, it can help to safely turn towards the feelings, to process and unpack them, work towards alternative coping mechanisms.

Our sessions can be somewhere to do this. Using your own inner resources and the frame of our work together, building a route through relationship and emotional distress. Counselling can provide us with an external resource too, to aid us in tapping into our inner strengths and resources. Sessions offer a chance to reflect, to consider alternative perspectives and to try out alternative coping strategies.

As our relationships mean so much to us, it is often a place to start. When something goes wrong, it can leave us depleted and it can fee hard to know how to put things right.

What To Expect

After assessment and contracting*, in our sessions together, we will start with a chance to talk through how you're feeling, what's been difficult and how you'd like things to be. This helps to focus our work and make good use of the time that we have**.

You may want to look at what has come before or keep the focus on how things will change in the future.

We can look at a range of approaches for working with individual issues and relationship distress. This might include explorations of communication patterns, working through the complexities of family relationships and history or unpacking thoughts around self-belief and esteem.

Our lives centre around the quality of our relationships and it's here that we, together, could make a difference.

[*Assessment is about being sure what you are looking for matches the competencies I can offer. Contracting outlines what you expect from me and what I expect as a counsellor in return].

[**Following assessment, it may be in the interest of clients to make an onward referral, for the best possible care and support]

Thank you for reading more about me, if you think I may be the right counsellor for you or have any questions please call for a chat or email any questions to me.

If I am not the right counsellor for you I wish you well in finding support. I would encourage you to speak to somebody you can trust to help understand your difficulties.