Louise Hooper

Sometimes it can hard to deal with some of the challenges that happen in life and we can lose a sense of who we are. Perhaps you are living with a recent or past loss, trauma or relationship difficulties, or you are feeling anxious and stressed. Together we can gently turn towards your feelings and explore your needs in a safe and professional therapeutic space, where you feel supported.

A period of difficulty (although sometimes painful), can be an opportunity to give yourself the time and space to discover more about you.

I help people work through experiences such as:

depression and stress; anxiety and panic attacks; domestic abuse; sexual abuse; bereavement and other life losses; addiction; difficulty adjusting to life changes; feeling overwhelmed and not knowing why; living according to the expectation of others; low self-esteem, negative thoughts and self judgement; self-harm and suicide; past or present relationship and family difficulties; trauma and attachment trauma; chronic pain.

I offer a warm, safe and supportive therapeutic space where we can explore concerns at your own pace. Together we can create some space in your life for you to value yourself and gain some understanding of your experiences. Some people contact me wanting to work with a specific issue, whereas others come to counselling wanting space to review where they are and bring some balance back into their life. I believe that, given the right conditions, it is possible to develop new ways of being in the world.

Patterns and adaptions, that helped you to fit into your families, workplaces and social relationships, may not be serving you in your life now and can become exhausting to your emotional wellbeing, physical wellbeing and mental health. Understanding yourself and life's challenges can be profound and can create an opportunity to make some changes.

As an integrative therapist, I am able to draw on a range of approaches including IFS (Internal Family Systems), Person Centred, Gestalt, Psychodynamic and creativity. I am interested in meditation, mindfulness and compassion and like to work somatically with the whole person, which includes the connection between the mind and the body – as trauma, anxiety and stress can manifest itself physically in the body and nervous system.

I help people through bereavement and we all experience loss in our life, but loss is not only experienced when someone has died. We can be impacted by divorce or loss of a partnership, loss of health, loss of a sense of who we are or a loss of direction in life, redundancy and retirement, a sense of loss when children leave home and many more. It may feel like the ground beneath you has opened up and you are separated from life as usual. It may be a place of uncertainty between what is no longer and what is yet to come. It is important to take the time to grieve these losses.

How we live our modern lives may be impacting us more than we realise and can lead to imbalance, loneliness or a lack of meaningful connection. I can help you to be curious and reflective, allowing you to make sense of your situation and gain a wider perspective.

‘Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you – all of the expectations, all of the beliefs – and becoming who you are’ – Rachel Naomi Remen

My regular fee is £55 per hour

I understand that finding a therapist that feels right for you is very important and as such I offer a free 30 minute initial session where we can meet to discuss what led you to contact me and how we might work together.

I am fully insured and an accredited member of the BACP (British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists).  I abide by their ethical framework and values and undertake supervision and professional development regularly.