Sue Phillips-Clarke
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
- Over 15 years experience in counselling, CBT and supervision
- 13 years experience of working full time in an NHS commissioned service providing CBT for depression and anxiety disorders
- Currently working for 3 days each week in a senior counselling/coordinator role for a local counselling charity
- Registered member of BACP and BABCP
- Recent client feedback: 'effortlessly warm and professional and having made a monumentally positive impact on my life. I could not recommend Sue enough'
The way I work
Described in client feedback as warm, direct, gentle, having a wealth of knowledge, professional, wonderful, strong, supportive, totally non-judgemental and effortlessly professional.
I offer a short, free initial telephone conversation to check suitability and availability. If I'm not the right practitioner, my considerable experience allows me to signpost to services which could be suitable.
The starting point for counselling or a CBT approach is to conduct a careful assessment. This gives you space and time to tell your story, to discuss openly how you’re feeling and to check for any symptoms that you might be experiencing. I’d usually expect this to take one session, at the end of which we can talk about what might be best for you. The way I work is flexible and will very much depend on you, your story and what would be most helpful for you.
Counselling provides a safe space and time for your voice to be really heard by someone who is impartial and not involved in your life outside the counselling room. Counselling is non-judgemental, honest and compassionate; whatever the problem. Counselling is led by you at your pace and this can help you make better sense of your difficulties in order to start to feel calmer and happier. Counselling is a talking therapy offering support.
A cognitive behavioural therapy approach also starts with time and space to have your voice heard. It's about support, but also facilitating change. CBT is a more structured approach often using homework in between sessions, which is what makes it effective in bringing about change. A CBT formulation looks at what might have brought about symptoms of a common mental health problem and then symptoms in thoughts, behaviours, body and feelings. Once the formulation is complete, CBT involves techniques and tools which are carefully planned each session.
Sessions are confidential. I work according to the BACP ethical framework. Each session is one hour long and delivered over a period of time agreed between us. I provide support that can be flexibly tailored to your needs.
Client feedback: 'I could not recommend Sue enough. I can honestly say that I have made more progress and have been able to trust Sue very quickly. I have more confidence and clarity in my thoughts'.
Client feedback: ' I wasn't in a good place when I met Sue, but with help, warmth and support I now find myself in a very positive place and I look forward to each day with positive and happy feelings'
Training, qualifications & experience
Qualifications:
- Diploma in Humanistic and Integrative Counselling, 2011, Bath Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy
- Postgraduate Certificate in Low Intensity Psychological Therapies (CBT), 2012, Exeter University
- MSc Medical Sociology, 1993, Royal Holloway University of London
- BSc (hons) Sociology, 1992, Portsmouth University
Experience
Between 2010 and 2023 I worked as a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner and supervisor at an NHS commissioned service. This role involves:
- Individual therapy sessions and group work, working face-to-face and on telephone and Microsoft Teams
- Helping people with common mental health problems like depression and anxiety using mainly a cognitive behavioural therapy approach.
- Working in a senior role providing supervision to colleagues
- Working with clients struggling with physical health problems like pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, heart disease and lung disease.
- Another area of special interest is weight management. I’ve run a course to help with weight management for over four years. This course introduces a holistic approach to weight management to help break the diet cycle, using ideas from mindfulness, acceptance and commitment therapy and compassion-focused therapy.
Before this role, I worked as a college counsellor for 3 years and prior to that worked as a lecturer in social sciences for 14 years.
Continuing professional development training:
- Risk awareness
- Working with self harm
- Low intensity CBT for OCD
- Behavioural experiments in low intensity CBT
- Generalised anxiety disorder in low intensity CBT
- Case management supervision
- Motivational interviewing
- Safeguarding
- Trauma informed practice
- Psychological approaches to physical health conditions
- Long term health conditions and medically unexplained symptoms
- Association for the Study of Obesity, UK Congress on Obesity
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
Other areas of counselling I deal with
Weight management
Therapies offered
Fees
£45.00 per session
Additional information
£45 per hour session
