About me
Sessions are in person near Fiveways in Brighton, or online - UK and Worldwide
You may be experiencing anxiety, depression, loneliness, relationship challenges, low self-confidence, a loss in meaning, the impact of childhood experiences, difficult emotions that overwhelm you, feeling disconnected and lost.
You may be wanting to make changes or going through a significant life event or transition. I have significant experience supporting people working through mid-life transitions.
I am a calm, grounded and considered counsellor. I can offer you a safe and honest space to understand what is underneath how are feeling, by holding up a mirror to you and getting curious about what we find, I can help you identify blind spots and connections you might not be aware of. When we understand our feelings better, we can feel more in control and less at their mercy. My aim is to help you be able to respond to life with resilience.
I am a fully qualified Psychotherapeutic Counsellor and Supervisor with over a decade of experience.
I offer a free initial 50-minute consultation session so that you can meet me, ask questions, experience the way I work and decide if I am the right Counsellor for you at this time.
I specialise in and can help you with:
Relationship Difficulties
Challenges in family and intimate relationships, attachment challenges and trauma, dating, relational co-dependency, boundaries, avoidance and fear of intimacy. Developing communication and relational skills for healthy relationships. Sexuality and intimacy.
Emotional regulation
Support and skills to understand and regulate difficult emotions and feeling states including anxiety, fear, overwhelm, anger, stress, sadness. Support to identify how you feel and how to sit with feelings you might be avoiding.
Life transitions & changes (especially mid-life)
Bereavement, grief & loss. Career changes, divorce, children leaving home, mid-life transition, peri-menopause, menopause. Experiencing a loss of meaning and purpose. Aging and death anxiety.
Feelings of low self-worth
This may include anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, relationship difficulties, feelings of hopelessness or being lost. Disconnection from personal needs, feelings or desires. Difficulties with boundaries. Experiences of shame, grief and guilt. Self-sabotage or feeling that you can’t cope.
Living with chronic illness
Support to live with chronic pain, fatigue and the impairments chronic illness can bring. I have worked with clients living with fibromyalgia, long-covid, and chronic fatigue syndrome, helping to develop coping mechanisms and providing a safe and accepting space to explore how chronic illness changes our relationships with ourselves and others.
Sessions might include:
· Bringing awareness to the thoughts, feelings and the behaviours that effect your experience of life and your relationship with others.
· Identifying the stories you tell yourself or your internal self-talk (especially the internal critic) and making links with how this impacts your experience, feelings and behaviour.
· Noticing coping mechanisms and what they might be protecting or avoiding.
· Working creatively and to access deeper or unseen parts of yourself. Working with images, creative writing, poetry, metaphors, drawing, dreams, music, and parts work.
· Working with your body. For example, inviting you to notice what you are experiencing in your body, as well as your thoughts and feelings.
I will always work at a pace that is right for you, with empathy, honesty and integrity.
Training, qualifications & experience
My qualifications:
I have a PGDip in Humanistic Psychotherapeutic Counselling from the University of Brighton, and I am an accredited member of the BACP. I have a certificate in Creative Supervision.
I also have a BSocSci in Politics and Philosophy, and a MPhil in Development Studies.
My experience:
I have over a decade of experience as a counsellor, and trainer of counsellors. I work in private practice and previously worked for a low-cost counselling charity. I am an Associate Lecturer in counselling and mental health at the Open University, and I teach counselling at the University of Brighton. I am also a counselling supervisor.
Before training to be a counsellor, and I worked as a social science lecturer and researcher at the University of Sussex for 12 years.
I combine my background in the social sciences with my training as a counsellor. Our mental health is not just influenced by our personal experiences, family and relationships, but also by the communities and society in which we live. I adopt a feminist approach to counselling and acknowledge the role power and patriarchy plays in the roles we play and how we feel about ourselves.
My approach:
I am a humanistic counsellor. My approach is based on the idea that we all make our own meaning in life, so your experiences, and the meanings you have given them, will be unique to you - there isn’t an off-the-shelf diagnosis that can solve all your problems. The goal of therapy is to make sense of you and your difficulties and find a way to respond that works for you.
It is also based on the idea that as it is often relationships that hurt us, it is also relationships that can heal us too. Counselling can offer a healing relationship with an honest, empathetic and accepting human.
Member organisations
school Registered / Accredited
Being registered/accredited with a professional body means an individual must have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by their member organisation.
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
£50.00 - £65.00
Concessions offered for
Additional information
I offer a free 50-minute initial consultation. This session is a chance for us to get to know one another, for you to experience the way I work, ask any questions you might have, and decide if I am the right therapist for you at this time.
Sessions are £65 for 50 minutes. I offer a limited number of appointments at £50 for students and people on low incomes.
When I work
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