Melanie Lucas
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
I believe that taking the first step in considering speaking with someone is often the hardest step to take. I aim to offer you a safe, relaxed and confidential space in which to hold your thoughts, fears and triumphs. Together we will work towards building a therapeutic relationship based on an honest, trustworthy and non-judgemental foundation.
Working remotely via video link, email or text can offer a safe stepping-stone into exploring challenges.
We are Spiritual beings and so working in a humanistic or existential way offers a way to nourish our souls while using models such as TA and gestalt to provide possible insight into our mind and body responses.
Perhaps you have a particularly stressful or challenging event ahead of you causing you to feel overwhelmed, you may be experiencing negative thoughts or behaviour patterns. Spending time exploring and understanding the cause of these and later how to change them into helpful thoughts or behaviours could be beneficial. Perhaps you’ve experienced a bereavement or loss, have had to accept a disability and feel life will not be the same or a life event has left you feeling lost and unable to see a way forward. We can work towards you taking back control and feel as though the future is something to look forward to.
Training, qualifications & experience
I am a qualified Humanistic Integrative Counsellor with over 15 years’ experience, Mindfulness trainer and qualified to British Sign Language Level 2 with training in level 3.
Member organisations
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
£35.00 - £65.00
Free initial telephone or online session
Concessions offered for
Additional information
Fees can be negotiated during our assessment session. As a guideline, those considered to be on a low income would pay the £35 per session fee.
Fees can be paid either directly after the session via bank transfer or 4 weekly.
I offer a free 15 minute initial session where we can 'meet'. Although brief this will ideally give us both the opportunity to ask some questions and decide if we will be a good fit to move forward with an assessment session and then counselling.
When I work
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Sessions start on these days at 09.00 through til 14.00 then 18.00 til 21.00.
Further information
Following our initial free 15-minute session we will have an assessment session. During this session, we will discuss how we are going to work together, how many sessions we will start with and go through any contract questions. During the assessment, I will usually ask quite a few questions so that I can be sure I have the skills and experience to work with you in line with the BACP ethical framework and code of practice. Following this our work will be led by the thoughts that are uppermost for you at the time. This is your time; you can guide the content and I will walk alongside you.
I offer long term and short-term work and see clients with specific challenges; however, I have found that not everything we are experiencing can be placed under a label or pinned down. The beauty of humanistic counselling is that we can take the time to explore whatever is coming up for you.
