Counselling & psychotherapy

I am an experienced integrative counsellor. I encourage my clients to agree goals in therapy and use person-centred (humanistic), psychodynamic as well as cognitive and behavioural techniques in my work with clients. Find out more.

What is counselling?
Counselling gives you the space to talk about the issues you are facing in every area of your life including relationships, family, work and friends. It also gives you a place to come to terms with life changes, whether it's a life crisis or a gradual change like ageing. For many people, a counsellor is someone who can hear and witness the challenges and upsets of their life without judging - a safe space to feel things that you normally put aside and to share things that are normally not heard.

What is psychotherapy?
Psychotherapy is another term used to describe counselling. Some people use ‘psychotherapy’ to describe deeper work to explore the impact of childhood experiences and our early life on the problems we face today. For me they are part of the same activity. Each client approaches counselling from a different angle and so I aim to fit my experience of working both in the here and now and with early life experience to the needs of my client.

Cognitive behavioural therapy
Cognitive behavioural therapy or CBT is often helpful for anxiety and depression. It is based on the belief that our emotions are caused by our thoughts and that by challenging negative thoughts we can help to stop negative feelings from taking hold and spiraling out of control.  Many GPs are now suggesting CBT to help their patients cope with anxiety and depression because there is a strong body of evidence to show that it works.

I use cognitive, behavioural, person-centred and psychodynamic approaches to help my clients cope with their lives.

Confidentiality
Everything discussed in the session is confidential. I will not pass on any information about you unless I believe you are likely to harm yourself or another person.

Professional membership
I am a member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).

Code of Ethics
I work with a strict code of ethics set by the BACP.

Areas of special interest

• Relationships (including couples therapy)
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Isolation and loneliness
• Confidence and self image
• Trauma and phobias
• Chronic pain and psychologically based pain
• Health anxiety
• Sexual problems including erectile dysfunction, sexual risk counselling and HIV diagnosis
• Sexuality and coming out
• Life work balance