Oliver Chadwick MBACP (Accred) Counsellor/Psychotherapist

About me

About Me

I am an Accredited Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and I hold a Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling.

I have been Counselling since 2014. The majority of this time has been spent working with individuals and couples on behalf of the NHS. In addition to running a private clinic in Beverley, I am currently employed on an NHS training programme in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) to provide a scientifically proven approach to individuals experiencing anxiety and depression.

Types of Therapy

Most people enter therapy when they begin to experience difficult emotions which are impacting upon their daily lives. We develop coping strategies to help us manage our emotions and some of these can be very helpful, whereas others might create further problems for us. Both Counselling and CBT aim to help us to relieve these difficult emotions by building upon our strengths and developing more helpful coping strategies.

Counselling seeks to help us to understand our emotions so that we can begin living in accordance with them. For example, understanding our grief can be very helpful to process our loss and relieve any guilt that we might feel, so that we can learn to accept our situation and begin moving forward with our life.

CBT seeks to help us understand the way that our thoughts and actions might keep us trapped in a 'vicious cycle' of difficult emotions. For example, if we think negative thoughts about ourselves or others, we might begin to avoid people or activities which could be a great source of happiness for us.

How I Work

Sometimes the therapeutic relationship can be helpful enough in itself. Having someone who listens to you, who really tries to understand you, and who works hard to provide a safe environment where you can truly be yourself, can definitely help people through difficult times and lead to sustainable change. Sometimes however, the therapeutic relationship simply isn’t enough.

My approach is Humanistic/Integrative. This means that I seek to form a relationship with you which is based upon encouraging openness and supporting you to understand yourself better, in line with the BACP Ethical Framework for Counselling Professions (2018). However, for those times when a little more directiveness is required, such as: education, skills training, problem-solving, coaching etc. I am able to draw from different approaches which have been proven to help.

From my experience providing both Counselling and CBT within the NHS, I recognise that there is a great deal of scientific evidence looking at which approach is most helpful for a specific problem. Counselling can be helpful for people experiencing depression, relationship issues, bereavement, adjusting to a new way of life, or simply understanding ourselves better and making decisions about where we want to go in life. CBT can also be very helpful for people experiencing depression, as well as anxiety issues such as excessive worry, panic attacks, social anxiety, phobias, intrusive thoughts and compulsions, and post-traumatic stress.

Overall, I recognise that you're the expert on you, and that I have a lot of knowledge and training which might be able to help. Therefore by putting our heads together, we can design an approach tailored towards helping you to unlock your inner resources in a way that is empowering to you as an individual.

What to Expect

I believe that structure is important in any therapy. Therapy sessions are usually very short in relation to your entire week, therefore it's essential that we use our time as productively as possible. I will usually begin a session by asking if there is anything in particular that you would like to use our time for, or if there is anything specific that you would like to gain from the session. I might also have some ideas about how we can use our time together and we can negotiate how we do this.

I also believe that it's important to implement any learning or insight that you may gain from our sessions into your life outside the therapy room. After all, most people attend therapy because they want to change something. Sometimes that change comes about naturally, but sometimes it can take a bit of effort and practice. I can discuss with you how you might begin to put new things in to place, or perhaps try some different things in between our sessions and see if it helps. 

I understand that everybody enters counselling at different points in their struggles. Some people want to understand more about how and why they feel like they do, whilst others seek to develop coping strategies and plans for the future. Whichever point you're at, we can discuss the best way to use our time together and formulate an approach that is tailored specifically to your unique personality and goals for therapy.

Contact

In order to discuss arranging sessions together, please send me a quick message outlining your preferred contact method via the link above and I will contact you at my next available opportunity.