Sarah Sivasundaram
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
Getting curious:
Often our inner voice, the voice that pops up when we haven’t achieved, haven’t completed, or haven’t communicated is a harsh inner critic. Do you imagine how life might be if that voice was kind, forgiving and full of love? Do you ask yourself 'what's wrong with me?'. Curiosity is a superpower. I offer a free half hour consultation for help you start your journey of curiosity.
What to expect in therapy:
Therapy can be a scary prospect. What do I say? How can I be vulnerable with a stranger? Will it work? Are all normal questions. My intention is to, over a few sessions, start to create a trusting working relationships. If a client doesn't know where to start I can helpfully prompt and guide.
My way of working:
My work is centred around the client's needs. I offer a blending of different therapeutic theories to help shed light on different times and aspects of your life. I can listen empathically, offer different perspectives and integrate your sessions with tools that can help you navigate today’s often fast paced and unpredictable world. I work with clients in person or online or via the telephone. I offer as low rates as I can to be as inclusive as I can.
Goal-focused therapy:
If you are looking for more goal-focused therapy or exploration into a specific area I also offer a more CBT based approach which supports self-help and we can plan a schedule of therapeutic work within a set number of sessions and monitor/review your progress. This can work well with anxiety, low mood, sleep problems, managing stress, managing anger, low self-esteem, coping with grief and loss, understanding menopause, loneliness and feeling lonely.
Training, qualifications & experience
I am trained as an integrative (blended approach) therapist from young people 16 years + up to any age. I help clients deepen their own understanding of their experiences alongside offering tools and psychological education to enrich their lives. I am a counsellor for Mind helping clients with anxiety and depression and I hold an additional qualification in this area.
I have worked with clients with a range of mental health challenges however, some areas I have more experience in. These areas are: trauma-informed work (working with clients to process adverse childhood events or childhoods, helping clients process and heal from domestic abuse, helping adult children of alcoholics), specifically helping clients with anxiety and depression, specifically helping clients look at their low self-esteem issues and working with their inner child, offering a neuro-affirmative approach (ADHD and AuDHD).
Through additional professional training and working with clients who are recovering from being in domestically abusive relationships (this includes all abuse under the umbrella term of coercive control) or who were children with an abusive parent, I can offer sessions to aid post traumatic recovery and growth through strength based-approaches. Alongside this I can offer a safe space to explore and process those painful past experiences (recent or historic).
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
Photos & videos
Fees
Free initial telephone session
Concessions offered for
Additional information
I offer flexible rates, for example, lower rates for trainees and/or people out of work. looking for employment. Please contact me for further details.
Further information
I believe that therapy isn’t necessarily about changing 'who we are' but more about getting to know 'who lies beneath'. By gaining a better understanding of who we are and what we’ve experienced, we can grow into accepting, loving and nurturing ourselves.
The privilege I have as a therapist is being able to support, emotionally contain and be a participant in a client’s own self-discovery and actualisation. You are the expert of you, and a non-judgmental space for you to realise your own potential during the sessions is something I can offer.
