Qualified and experienced counsellor based in Stroud, Gloucestershire.
I provide a confidential service helping people to explore personal issues in order to feel happier and lead a more fulfilling life.
If you are struggling with feelings of low self-esteem, stress, anxiety, depression or bereavement, or if you are having problems in your relationships at home or at work, counselling might be able to help you to make important changes in your life.
Counselling provides a special therapeutic relationship where you will not be judged and where you will be given the respect and empathy you need to truly express yourself. Without providing advice, instructions or directions, I aim to empower my clients so that they can work towards a happier future. With the support of a skilled and effective counsellor, you can begin to understand your life, your situation and your feelings in a new way, and come up with your own solutions for problems which previously felt unmanageable. In this way, you can begin to understand your difficult issues and find the power and strength to make things better for yourself.
There are many different approaches to counselling and psychotherapy. My training was ‘integrative’ allowing a variety of techniques and ideas within my counselling practice, but my main inspiration is Carl Rogers’ approach of ‘person centered therapy’.
I believe that it is the quality of the counselling relationship, rather than any particular approach or technique which creates a truly therapeutic and beneficial experience for the client. I aim to achieve certain ‘core conditions’ within the therapeutic environment, based on the work of Carl Rogers. Rogers felt that therapy could help clients where the counsellor is able to effectively demonstrate empathy and unconditional positive regard. This means that the client will feel truly understood and is never judged or criticised. In this way a counselling relationship is very different from our interactions with friends and relatives.