Person Centred Counselling

I am a counsellor offering person centred counselling. What that means, is it’s about you and how you got here. I believe everyone has the ability to find their way through tough times and heal and grow.

I have worked with many different presenting issues in a sensitive and compassionate way. These include anxiety, depression, bereavement, abuse – domestic and child – health concerns, relationship issues, life events.

I offer a safe, respectful, non-judgemental, confidential space to explore whatever it is that brings you here. I ensure we go at your pace. I believe you should retain autonomy over your experiences and ways forward. I believe everyone has an ability to grow and develop and I will stand with you as you start/continue that journey.

I believe in Carl Rogers approach, in which he described person centred therapy as, the process of change and self actualisation – as one of listening to the feelings of the client and through this they become able to recognise their own feelings. They may be isolated from their experience but this is regained through listening to their feelings and loosening the rigidly held constructs. They may start to look at aspects of their life which they were unable to understand or place meaning in but slowly they can focus on these aspects. (Rogers 1967 pg 63-99)

Effective counselling is you being listened to in an empathetic way – a place to bring feelings and emotions and seek to explore those deeply, to the point they are fully realised, acknowledged and integrated into our organic self.  I use my listening skills and seek to understand those feelings and often voice unspoken feeling and emotions that I become aware of as you speak your truth.  This requires a place which is safe and confidential where you can explore difficult feelings.  To do that you need unconditional positive regard, a place where you are fully accepted and understood.  A place where I see you with compassion, kindness and goodness.  I may bring your image of yourself into focus and seek to understand where that has come from.  This may allow you to unburden yourself as you understand why you feel a certain way.  It is often at this point you become aware that a troubling belief or emotion makes perfect sense based on what happened to you.  This can release a burden you have been carrying around and bring new experiences into your life.

There is no one size fits all in therapy – it is your life and you are unique, your experiences, background are unique, your family, work, hobbies all paint a picture that only you have fully experienced.  Because of this, there are no right answers, the way forward will be known by you.  What is right for you will be based on all your experiences and feelings and these will be different from another persons.  It can be an important part of therapy learning that your feelings are valuable and important.  For example, we may have learnt to subvert our needs to survive in a complex family environment.  Learning to speak our truth and needs can be very frightening but also liberating.  The counselling room is a place to learn more about ourselves and what we need to shape our world.

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