If you are struggling with your mental health, have had a life change causing you distress, want to change old patterns, gain clarity to untangle personal issues or have some nagging things you’d like to work on for self-development. You may be feeling in crisis, or you may feel stable but have some areas you’d like to look at to improve your overall wellbeing.

I have often heard from clients and non-clients alike who state their issues, that are having a real negative impact on their life, are not big enough for therapy or they would feel guilty in taking up that time for something they deem not as important as another person’s problems. Everyone’s issues are relative - different situations can affect people in drastically different ways and in our understanding of trauma we have small ‘t’ trauma that can be caused by smaller or accumulative events. Whatever is distressing you is big enough and important enough.

The integrated approach I offer of person-centred counselling, EFT and body-based techniques are helpful for when you are experiencing distressing life events or emotions, have anxiety, depression, PTSD, and/or trauma. Some examples of the types of issues you could be experiencing are intrusive thoughts, poor boundaries, bereavement, overwhelming phobias, low self-worth, relationship issues, coping with traumatic event/s, burn out, overthinking, anger issues, crisis of identity and low mood.

I work with adults and young people from high school age.

It is beyond my levels of competency to work with more complex mental health conditions, for example schizophrenia and personality disorders. My priority is to provide the most benefit to my client and operate ethically, so if you have issues that go beyond my levels of competency then I will do my best to offer you a suitable referral.

I am an integrative therapist which means I tailor my approach to the issues you are wanting to work on. You don’t have to know what type of approach you would like at this stage, using the free consultation and as we continue to work together, we’ll find what is helpful to you.

Beginnings:

On top of what you may already be going through, the process of starting therapy can bring up stress. For example, the decision to book a session, anticipation in the lead up and then the session itself, meeting someone for the first time, the expectation to face difficult emotions.

This often means the first session (or more!) is about regulating the nervous system. If we have spent a lot of time in our fight or flight response, the initial mission is to work on you feeling comfortable in the healing relationship and providing tools to bring you to a calm place, where we can peal back the layers of what brought you to therapy.

This could simply be having a conversation about what brought you to therapy, where you can experience a relationship with myself that holds no judgement and empathy. It could include breathing exercises, using the breath to calm our bodies physical reactions to stress for the mind to follow. This could also be using techniques of EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique, a method of tapping on meridian points in the body to release trapped negative emotions and bring about a calmer state.

I may make suggestions but ultimately it is up to you where we go with the conversation or tools I offer; we work together to tailor the sessions to your needs.

Middles:

Whilst the beginnings are often about feeling comfortable in the setting and working out what works and what doesn’t, the middles are usually about going deeper and uncovering the different layers to the issues you have been dealing with. This may be challenging, but therapy is not all deep and dark, often I find we have lighter moments of reflection and sharing a laugh during the process is common!

This sometimes what we go on to work on is directly linked to the issue you brought at the start, or it could go somewhere completely different.

The beauty of this part is the surprising things that can come up, often with some ‘A-ha!’ moments, or it could feel murky whilst we wade through what has come up in our sessions. It is not unusual to have some big revelations not until our final session!

Ending:

It is completely up to you when we end our sessions. Ideally, we would have a planned ending of 2 sessions to take stock of what you’ve gained and how to incorporate this into your life going forward.

We will regularly review how things are going to ensure you are still getting benefits from the sessions and this is a good opportunity to check in on if you feel if all your needs have been met and are ready to end.

Some people feel better after only a few sessions, some it may take a number of sessions to uncover the layers behind your issues. Each journey is individual and there is no right or wrong, but a rough average for meaningful change is 8-12 sessions, this being what is offered in the NHS and non-profit counselling services. The number of sessions could be a lot more or a lot less, it depends on what you want to work on.

Every week is the standard or biweekly in some circumstances. It’s worth noting that regular attendance will aid the therapy process, however life happens, and it is absolutely fine to take breaks in the sessions when needed. It may be that once you’ve dealt with the bulk of your issues, that you want a session ‘now and again’ to keep on top of things or deal with big life changes.

Completely your choice, I offer both so you can choose what works best for you and this can change if you would prefer to alter the arrangement to suit your needs.

I am committed to your confidentiality and maintain an ethical practice in line with the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy. Operating ethically also means there are exceptions where I would need to share information, these situations being if you or others were in imminent danger or express the intent to commit a major crime. I have legal obligations to disclose criminal information, have a duty of care to those I work with and would seek to help you in getting the necessary support.

I have a supervisor who I would speak about my work with to continue the quality of my work, but no names or identifying features are given so you are kept completely anonymous.

I will not be able to provide crisis support outside of our scheduled session times. In an emergency please contact your GP, the emergency services or a 24-hour support line such as the Samaritans on 988.

We’ll start with a free 20 minute consultation to go through what you would like to gain from the sessions and we can ensure that I would be a good fit for your needs. Following this we’ll arrange when and how you’d like to have the sessions get it booked in.

Yes! However, my role as therapist is different than the one of yoga teacher in a group class. Although all my work follows the same principles of encouraging non-judgement, self-awareness, and empowerment of choice of the individual, I wouldn’t be able to give the same 1-1 attention in classes compared with therapy sessions. If you are seriously struggling with your mental health and feel you need more attentive support, I would advise focussing on the 1-1 sessions before attending a class.

• 20 min initial consultation over Google video call or telephone: Free

• 50 min session over Google video call: £45

• 50 min session in person: £57

I have a limited number of spaces for concessionary rates for those on low income or currently unemployed, please contact me to discuss.

Please complete a bank transfer to the payment details I will provide you minimum 24 hours before our session.

I have a 24-hour cancellation policy which means that I will charge in full for any missed or cancelled session where 24 hours’ notice has not been provided.

I fully understand that life happens, however if you need to cancel a session for any reason, please let me know with as much notice as possible and we can reschedule.