Kathryn Smith
About me
I am a qualified Person Centred Counsellor, having trained at the University of East Anglia - one of only two places in the UK to train in this style of counselling before it closed last year. I graduated with my Post-graduate Diploma in 2015, my Masters in 2016 and I have over 750 client hours.
I work with people of all ages, with any issues they may need to work through. Person Centred Counselling is a humanistic approach that sees the client as the 'expert' of themselves, rather than the counsellor. The approach is a non-directive one, meaning that you are unlikely to be given tasks or homework to do as may happen within approaches such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and a lot of what happens in sessions should be led by you. However, this does not mean you are alone in your journey to feeling better - I am there to support you as you work through things. Asking for help/recognising that you need it, is one of the bravest and strongest things you can do.
I would start our work together by giving you a counselling contract that details the expectations of both of us within our counselling relationship which I am happy to email to you in advance. I will aim to be in touch with you within 48 hours to make initial contact as due to the nature of this work, I am often not able to immediately respond to phone calls.
What to expect if you choose to contact me about sessions:
- Firstly we would have a 5 minute phone conversation to see if we could potentially work together and then we could have a face to face initial assessment meeting (up to 25 minutes long, at a cost of £20) if you wanted to or we could go straight into a first full length session.
Training, qualifications & experience
My qualifications are as follows:
Post-Graduate Certificate in Person Centred Couselling (University of East Anglia)
Post-Graduate Diploma Person Centred Counselling (University of East Anglia)
MA Counselling (University of East Anglia)
I have over 750 client hours, and have worked with many different types of client of all ages on both a time limited and long term basis.
I work as a college Counsellor and have experience working with teenagers, as well as with adults of all ages (including older adults).
Member organisations
British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy
BACP is one of the UK’s largest professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy. Therapists registered with the Association fall into a number of different membership categories such as Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP and Registered Member MBACP (Accred), each standing for different levels of training and experience. MBACP (Accred) and MBACP (Snr Accred) members have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by the Association.
Registered members can be found on the BACP Register, which was the first register to achieve Accredited Voluntary Register status issued by the Professional Standards Authority. Individual Members will have completed an appropriate counselling and/or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but will not appear on the BACP Register until they've progressed to Registered Member MBACP status.
All members are bound by a Code of Ethics & Practice and a Complaints Procedure. Accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.
Accredited register membership
Accredited Register Scheme
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
- Sessions are 50 minutes long
- They cost £45 per session, to be paid at the end of each session for the first month and then invoiced monthly after that.
- I am based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. My working hours can be flexible but at the moment my available days are Monday's and Wednesday's.
- Initial Assessment (face to face) cost - £20 for up to 25 minutes, if you want one for us to see if we wish to move forwards into sessions.
