Katherine Crook

Hello and welcome,

Are you feeling stressed/anxious, maybe experiencing heart palpitations or panic attacks?  Having trouble getting to sleep, or waking at 2/3/4am and then struggling to get back to sleep?  Feeling exhausted, struggling to stay positive, get up and look forward to the day?  Feeling your relationships are not as you want them to be?  You may even be feeling angry and wanting to hit out, or smash things up? 

Are you feeling low mood, struggling to get out of bed and into the shower, struggling to see the point of getting on with the day?  Finding you have no energy and a lot of your thinking is negative?  You may be spending more time than you are comfortable with in front of the TV, eating things you wish you weren't eating and maybe even feeling that wine/beer/spirits are needed each evening.

You are likely well informed about the things that self help books say you can do and have tried some of the techniques.  You may have had counselling before, found that it helped at the time but then you have found yourself back in a similar sort of place as before.  Feeling stressed or anxious again, experiencing depression or low mood again, maybe struggling with your relationships again. If you are honest with yourself, you know that things are getting worse, rather than better, and you just need some help in this matter.

Working with me, you can live a life free of panic attacks, reduce your anxiety to normal pre-performance nerves, improve your sleep so that you feel rested and refreshed when you wake up in the morning.  Feel confident that your anger is under control and move out of depression/low mood into a positive, hopeful frame of mind.

So that when you wake up you feel good about getting out of bed in the morning, you feel positive about the day ahead and you feel confident facing whatever the day may bring, whether that's a big work meeting, a day looking after the kids, a date with a loved one, or a really challenging problem that needs tackling.

To effect this sort of transformation requires time. If you've had counselling before and find yourself back in a similar sort of place, it's likely you stopped too soon.  Six weeks of therapy is not enough to make deep transformational, lasting change.  You will feel better after 6 weeks, a lot of your anxiety symptoms will have reduced, you will be sleeping better and you will be feeling more energised, less stressed, less depressed.  After 12 weeks you will start to understand patterns within your anxiety or depression and be seeing improvements in your relationships.  With 12 weeks + you get to really understand the origins of your anxiety/depression/relationship issues and work through past hurts and traumas so that they can move firmly into the past and not keep affecting your present day living.

I help people gain new insights and awareness they did not previously have, so they feel calmer, more in control, understand what they want to do about the issues they are facing and feel ready to take action.  Once they have this increased understanding, they usually start to be able to make changes, which improves their wellbeing.

Whatever the issues you are facing, I recognise that everyone is unique. When you are with me, I will give you my full support and attention. I will provide a safe confidential space for you to express yourself. I work in a caring and respectful way, whilst also challenging you in a supportive way with different ways of thinking, suggestions and new ideas.

I will absolutely not tell you how to live your life. I work with an agreement between us about what you want to get out of your counselling. The purpose of counselling is to provide caring support, greater understanding of you and the issues you are facing and ultimately transformational change towards whatever you decide you want in your life.

I can help with:

• Anxiety and stress
• Panic and fear
• Depression/low mood
• Relationship issues
• Low self-esteem
• Anger frustration and rage
• Work related-stress & burnout

Next steps

I'm an Accredited Integrative Counsellor with 10 years of experience helping people who normally come to counselling because they recognise things cannot go on as they are and something has to change.

I am warm, welcoming, friendly and well-qualified.  I offer open-ended counselling, tailored to suit you, as we all have unique needs.  

I offer a 50 minute consultation for £60. After the initial nerves about stepping into counselling, clients often feel relieved to have a safe supportive space with me to come and talk through their thoughts and feelings. It’s a different kind of conversation than one you might have with friends or family.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, or to book an appointment by clicking here to send me an email, or call me on 07854 139921.

My rates are:

£60/50 minute initial consultation.

£60/50 minute session for individuals.

What happens in the consultation?

I will ask you questions about your mental and physical health, your previous experience of counselling and ask you what brings you to counselling now and what you hope to get from counselling.  You can ask me any questions you like.  This is a chance for you to meet me in person and see if you feel comfortable with me.

If you decide to go ahead with me, we can book our first appointment there an then, or you may want to go away and think about it and perhaps meet with other counsellors.  What's most important is you find the right counsellor for you.

What happens in the first session?

By the end of the consultation we will have agreed what the goal of your counselling is and how we plan to work together, so I will re-confirm this with you and then we will start straight away.

Most often you decide the content of the sessions, so for example if the goal is to feel less anxious then most likely you would be speaking about how you experience your anxiety in detail.  I'll tend to ask some questions and give feedback and observations to help you better understand how you are feeling, what you are facing and help you decide how to move forwards towards feeling better.

How do I get the most out of my counselling?

Research about what works in helping others shows that the relationship between the client and the helper, whether coach, trainer or counsellor is very important in determining a good outcome.  Giving feedback as soon as you feel able and as honestly as you can about something that wasn't helpful, or equally something that you found helpful, enables your counsellor to understand you better and fine-tune their approach to you and helps build a strong relationship.

Reflecting on your sessions during the week and paying attention to your physical, emotional and social needs outside the sessions will help.  As well as giving yourself a break and rewarding yourself for what you are doing.