How I Work
General
I understand that approaching a counsellor/therapist for the first time can be daunting, so I try to make you feel as comfortable and at ease as I am able.
I have a discreet, dedicated, counselling room with parking immediately outside. I can offer weekday daytime or evening appointments and have some weekend availability.
On the first appointment I read out, and offer you a printed copy, my statement of confidentiality and terms which has often been previously emailed to you. I have a form with some factual questions (such as address, phone number, relationship details etc) on it which takes about 5 or 6 minutes for me to complete, and also gives you a few minutes to settle.
I then ask (each of you if I am seeing a couple) “What brings you here, what do you hope that I can help you with.” We would then spend the rest of the session, of up to one hour, exploring the issues that you have come with.
A strong therapeutic relationship is important, but if I ever see clients away form the counselling environment I am trained to not acknowledge them for reasons of client confidentiality. Obviously, if a client speaks to me first, I would respond accordingly.
I offer both short-term and longer term counselling, but I am bound by both the BACP and COSRT code of ethics which means that it would be unethical for me to continue seeing you if it felt that the work was complete. Without rushing the process, and with the knowledge that they can return at any time in the future, clients are often more confident that they can manage on their own sooner rather than later.
Couples
I am trained to be completely neutral; looking at the dynamics between a couple rather than looking for a ‘bad guy’ and a ‘good guy’. I am interested in what has caused the difficulty between two people, and what is helping maintain the issues between them. They say that clients only have one argument; they just have it hundreds of times. My role is to unpack these arguments and help clients get in touch with what meaning is behind the words.
Individuals
Although my expertise is with couples, my relationship work enables me to work with individuals with issues causing them difficulties within different relationships. i.e. work, family, romantic, friendships etc etc. I get particularly good feedback from individual clients when I have been working with them on increasing their self esteem, lowering their anxiety, and when suffering from mild depression.