Sara Williams
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
25yrs+ Private Practice in Bodywork, Talking Therapies, Relational and Behaviour Change experience inform my Integrative Counselling approach - which means relationships and how we relate to ourselves and others, is key to understanding how we experience life and our mental wellbeing. My current work in Workplace Clinical Assessments and Counselling and role as a School Counsellor for 16-18yr olds, enrich my Private Practice work.
INTEGRATIVE COUNSELLOR - I trained as an Integrative Therapeutic Counsellor, with Psychodynamic, Attachment Theory and Humanistic influences. Relationships are at the heart of human experience, and at the heart of my counselling approach. Foundational to your relationship with others is your relationship with yourself, and developing Body Awareness is fundamental to understanding how and why you feel what you feel and think.
I have lived, worked and travelled extensively around the world, and continue to work with a wide variety of people, from all walks of life, including: refugees, first responders, journalists and international development specialists experiencing crisis situations. I’ve also worked with blue chip companies, families, artists, musicians, dancers, actors, academics, students, manual labourers, corporate leaders and office workers, frontline medical staff, manual labourers, unemployed, and many more, all of whom present with variations in mental health states: from stress, to anxiety and depression, questions of identity, health concerns and handling life transitions such as pregnancy and parenthood, adulthood, relationship beginnings and endings, work, menopause, ageing and the passing of life.
CLINICAL ASSESSMENTS and COUNSELLING - I understand workplace pressures and the influence of home life on work, and vice versa. I work with an Employee Assistance Programme, providing clinical assessments and counselling support to clients working or reporting from conflict and crisis areas, First Responders, NHS Trust frontline medical and administrative staff, corporate, government and charity staff. Clients arise from a vast diversity of ethnicity, culture, religion, age, socio-economic background, and states of mental wellness and pressures.
SCHOOL COUNSELLOR - I’m a School Counsellor at a central London, selective Senior School, working with students 16-18yrs on an accelerated academic programme aiming for placement in top Universities, with particular focus on academically bright students from areas of socio-economic deprivation. My private practice and school experience includes working with young people on identity and expression (LGBTQ+, non-binary), relationships, social and generalised anxiety, depression, OCD, self-harm, suicidal ideation, self-worth, academic performance and pressures.
Training, qualifications & experience
Starting out with a BA major in Psychology, it completed as majors in Sociology and Politics, reflecting a desire to understand the world at large. I soon realised the key to understanding and affecting change in the world is understanding and supporting change in the individual. Hence, my life work is dedicated to understanding people and the way we relate.
Evolving with a career in bodywork, healing and talking therapy, my counselling approach highlights the value of noticing your body’s communication. Anxiety always indicates some degree of movement away from our body and what it naturally senses. Re-discovering that the body does not lie is pivotal in countering a mind overwhelmed with thoughts that can be incessant, critical, doubting, shameful or self-defeating. You sit down for the session in your body and experience the world through your body, so it makes sense your relationship with your body will be part of our counselling work.
I work with an Integrative Psychotherapeutic Counselling model, trained in a number of different strands (Psychodynamic, Attachment Theory, Humanistic), in addition to the practical application of Lasting Behaviour Change work, giving me the flexibility to adapt to what each client is calling for.
I am not restricted to being issue specific and experience has brought great diversity of clients and exposure to a wide variance in what people struggle with, something I never apply a hierarchy of importance to. Each person’s presenting issue is unique and to be approached with equal honour, attentiveness and care.
MBACP Registered
- Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling -Integrative Psychodynamic/Behavioural Models (Mary Ward)
- Current advanced professional studies: Clinician's Pathway - Evidenced based Functional Behaviour Assessment with the Functional Assessment Behaviour Interventions Clinic (FABIC)
- Other Qualifications include: Bachelors Degree, extensive training in bodywork and healing modalities.
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
£50.00 - £130.00
Free initial online session
Concessions offered for
Additional information
- Online (Zoom) - Weekdays (£70/session)
- Clinic (In-person) - Thursdays and Saturdays (£80/session)
- Young Adults (16-25yrs) - Online and In-person (£50/session)
- Couples - Online (£100/session) and In-Person (£130/session)
Further information
- An initial phone consultation is available (no charge). An opportunity to ask questions and get an understanding for how we could work together.
- Short and Long-term therapy is available.
- All Online sessions are conducted via Zoom, and seek to replicate the integrity of the face-to-face counselling setting.
- Face to Face sessions are in Belgravia, near Victoria Train/Tube Station, London
