Questions about counselling

What is counselling?

Counselling is a type of talking therapy. Counselling provides you with a confidential space to talk to a trained professional about your issues and concerns, where these may stem from and how you might understand and better manage with them.  Essentially you talk and the counsellor will respond where they think this will be helpful to you.  They may reflect a word, ask a question or give you the space to stay with a feeling or thought. They are trying to help you explore your thoughts, feelings and behaviours as fully and possible so you can develop a better understanding of yourself. A counsellor will not give you advice or tell you what to do. They will help you to explore your thoughts, feelings and experiences so that you can find your find your own way through whatever is causing you concern. You can find out more about therapy on the BACP website.

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I am a person centred counsellor. Person centred therapy is based on the view that everyone has the capacity for personal growth and change, given the right conditions. Key to person centred counselling is me offering you a non-judgemental, accepting and empathic space where you and I can be honest with each other.  I will encourage you to explore and reflect on your life experiences and challenging feelings. We will look together at any obstacles that may be causing you difficulties and what you might do to make changes. 

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The aim of person centred counselling is to create a space for you to explore and understand all parts of yourself and your experiences so you can start to feel and see change in yourself, how you approach situations and other people.  Sessions will always be led by you rather than directed by me. We can talk about how are you are finding counselling at any point during our sessions.

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How is counselling different from therapy or psychotherapy?

You may come across the words therapy and psychotherapy when looking into counselling. What do these mean? Therapy is a more general word that covers a wide range of interventions including counselling. There is a lot of debate in the counselling world about the terms counselling and psychotherapy. Some people say there is very little difference in terms of what happens in the room between the psychotherapist/counsellor and the client, others think that psychotherapy is a longer term therapy focusing on deep seated issues that will result in more fundamental changes in you. 

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What kind of issues do you work with? 

I provide counselling for anxiety, counselling for depression, counselling for low self-esteem and a wide range of other issues.  I am interested in not only what you are feeling but also why you are feeling as you are. Our feelings do not stand alone apart from us; how we feel depends on the context of our lives and experiences and so we will focus on understanding what your life is like for you.

 

I have an interest in working with younger adults and students as I know, from experience, that this stage of life can be challenging to navigate.

I have experience of working with academic study related issues including perfectionism, procrastination and motivation issues. I have also worked with students who experience low self confidence and social anxiety.

 

I don't take clients who are at risk of serious harm to themselves.

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How long will I need counselling?

This will depend on what you want to explore, where you want to be at the end of your counselling and how you are feeling at the moment. We can discuss this further in your first session.  Generally though, if you are feeling better able to manage the issues you initially bring to counselling, you may feel ready to end your sessions. After our initial meeting, where we explore how you would like to use your sessions, we will regularly review our work so that you are getting what you need from counselling.  It will always be your decision when to finish counselling.

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How do I get the most from counselling?

Counselling involves you spending your time, money and emotional energy, so it is important that you feel like it is benefiting you.  A helpful article about getting the most from your sessions can be found here. This article provides some useful pointers about getting the most from your sessions. My experience is that clients get the most from counselling when they attend consistently, consider thoughts and feelings that have arisen in sessions between sessions and let me know what is and isn't helpful to them. 

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