Ruth Glew

With more than 30 years in the NHS as a General Nurse, Mental Health Nurse, Genetic Counsellor and qualified Cognitive Behavioural therapist, I have a wealth of experience to help you with your problems. I particularly specialise in helping people and their loved ones come to terms with chronic or life limiting illness and also genetic conditions. My aim is to assist you to make decisions for yourself, to improve your sense of personal wellbeing and to alleviate your distress. I provide a friendly, respectful, confidential and safe space for us to explore what is bothering you and help you work towards finding an effective way through. Therapy is tailored to your individual needs aiming to help you make progress straight away.

My Approach:

My main counselling qualification is in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (level 7) which is proven to help in a wide range of emotional and physical health conditions and is recommended by National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a proven effective treatment for depression and anxiety. CBT looks at the connection between our emotions, thoughts, behaviour and physical reactions and by gaining awareness of these connections, we can learn invaluable skills that will help us manage difficulties both now and in the future. During your therapy sessions, we will explore what might be contributing to your distress and helping you identify more effective strategies to manage your situation.

Initial session:

You will be asked to tell me as much about your reasons for seeking assistance as you can so that we can gain a better understanding of how I may be able to help and ways in which we may work together. We will be working at your own pace and if you feel uncertain about explaining certain things, your decisions will be respected. During this first session, my job is to listen and by doing this I hope that you will feel supported and understood. We will also begin to explore ways of how you can better manage your situation so that you leave the session with some tools to move forward.

Subsequent Sessions:

I would usually suggest six further sessions with the opportunity to review progress in every session. There would then be the option of continuing beyond six sessions should we both feel that this would be appropriate. Some people require six sessions or less, others may need many more than the initial six sessions.

I offer counselling in a quiet and private location with free parking. There is also a bus route nearby connecting to Cardiff, Bridgend and the Rhondda valleys.