About me
I offer counselling in a safe, confidential space and I work with clients bringing the following issues:
Anxiety
Anxiety is a common concern for many clients. Anxiety can appear in many forms and has many triggers. We will look at what is causing your anxiety, which may be relationships, lifestyle factors, work, or your past, and help you to move towards solutions for freeing yourself from it.
Grief / Bereavement / Loss
All of us will suffer loss in our lives. Most of us can move on but sometimes it can feel impossible. In our sessions working with loss you can explore your grief in a safe environment, in the knowledge that my experience working with clients suffering loss will aid our work.
Addiction
Addiction is a common problem and there is an enormous amount of shame surrounding it. Many addicts spend decades trying to hide their addiction. My experience working with addicts will benefit you as we look at how you would like to change, what a life free from addiction might look like for you, why you became an addict and how you can control your addictive behaviours.
Stress
Stress can creep up on you over time and it can be hard to recognise when it's getting too much. Flashes of anger, tiredness, losing interest in life, and physical symptoms such as pain and digestive issues can all be linked to stress. This kind of counselling may just be a space to unload, or it may be a place to find a route out - or perhaps even to find acceptance of the stress you live under.
Counselling for Meaning / Life Direction
"Who am I?" is the biggest question we can ask ourselves. Here are some questions my clients might ask:
- "My children have grown up and left home. Who am I now I'm not caring for them?"
- "I've retired from work. I spent 40 years in work. Who am I once I've stopped working?"
- "I've lost a loved one who was everything to me. Who am I now they're gone?"
- "I'm starting out after finishing university. I don't know what I want to do, who I want to be or even where to start. Who am I?"
- "I'm a recovering addict. I spent 30 years being someone else and I don't want to return to being that person. Who am I now I'm clean?"
The question "Who am I" sits with all of us many times in our lives. I give you the space to learn who you are now, and why, and to discover the potential that question holds within it. "Who am I" also holds within it "Who could I be, if I wanted to live the most meaningful life I could?" Meaning sustains us. Meaning is life. The more meaningful our lives, the greater our satisfaction. Come and sit with me, and explore what is meaningful to you.
Training, qualifications & experience
I have a CPCAB Level 4 in Person-Centred therapy. In the last two years I've volunteered with recovering addicts at a residential addiction centre (as part of my training), and at a Hospice with the families of the bereaved.
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.
The National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society This Not For Profit association of counsellors and psychotherapists aim to support the counselling profession, members and training organisations. In 2013 the NCS register was accredited by the Professional Standards Authority under the Accredited Voluntary Register Scheme. Accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.
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
£60.00 per session
Additional information
Before we work together we will have an introductory call. There is no charge for this. It will usually last 15-20 minutes.
The purpose of this call is to allow me to see if I am able to help you, and for you to decide whether or not you feel comfortable working with me. Counselling is challenging and the counsellor has to be the right one for the client. If it doesn't feel right to you, the client, you shouldn't proceed.
I run 60 minute sessions rather than the standard 50 minute sessions. You'll be getting 10 extra minutes! I find clients really appreciate the extra time when they are working with difficult issues - and no client has ever told me they wished we'd finished sooner!
If clients are looking to block book a set of sessions, I offer a discount.
Further information
I'm Russell, and I am an Integrative Counsellor. That means that I use different ways of working depending on your needs. Every client is unique, and there's no "method" that works all the time.
I believe that a great deal of our unhappiness in our modern world is caused by a disconnect from our past way of living, before cities, agriculture and industrialisation. For a million years our ancestors lived in small groups, knowing everyone we saw every day, and we had our stories, our close connection to others, our lives in nature, our myths and faiths. The modern world has brought many benefits but we have also lost much of what makes us human, and I think that is at the root of our misery. My counselling style is about keeping the best of the new while reconnecting with the lost past that made us human.
If there was a phrase that sums up the way that I work it is this - the best of me wanting the best for the best of you.
To be the best that I can in the counselling room, I bring a wide range of techniques, and broad knowledge of a wide range of fields. in one session we might start with your dreams and discuss them, and then find a part of the dream that relates to a behaviour you want to change, and I would then explain the brain chemistry behind the behaviour. And we might finish by looking at where that behaviour originates - your home life as a child, an event that affected you, or perhaps evolutionary programming a hundred thousand years old - and how you can change it for the better.
That sounds like a lot, and it is, but counselling is challenging for clients and I want my clients to know that whilst it IS hard, I will be there for them throughout our time together, and I want the best for the best part of them.
