How can counselling and psychotherapy help me?
Often friends, family members or colleagues are too close to your issues and can cloud your thinking or judgements. Therapy gives you the time and space to explore your thoughts in a way that helps you discover your feelings, make decisions or simply feel heard.
What can counselling can help with?
Counselling can help with a range of emotional issues, dilemmas or difficult life experiences, which will help you explore or navigate your circumstances in a supportive environment.
Managing Emotions
Feeling anxious, low in mood or tearful are common reasons for attending counselling, along with feeling empty or wondering why you're just not feeling your usual self.
Counselling can help you understand difficult emotions.
Relationships
Are you facing a relationship breakdown, divorce, blended families or struggling with being a step-parent?
Counselling can help you understand your relationships whether with family, friends and colleagues and navigate challenging times in life.
Work-based issues
Stress, workplace bullying, imposter syndrome, fears of redundancy or experiencing burnout are all common themes in counselling and can be confidentially explored with your therapist outside of work.
Counselling can sometimes be provided on your work premises (if commissioned by, or with the agreement of your employer) and remains confidential to you.
Life-transitions
Are you feeling frazzled, or have you lost your sense of purpose or joy? Or are you lacking in confidence, motivation or feeling more anxious about the future?
Counselling can help with the additional challenges that life-changes such as divorce, loss, menopause, mid-life, career transitions, heading off to university and/or early retirement can bring.
Grief & Loss
Coming to terms with the loss of a loved one or facing our own mortality are some of the biggest challenges that life can throw at us. Counselling can be helpful to explore your feelings, whether for yourself or as a carer.
Counselling for pet-loss also recognises some people may need extra support whilst grieving for a much loved pet, and can often bring up unexpected emotions.
Of Note: We have pets on our premises for those with allergies to be aware of. They may even join you in session if you feel you'd benefit from their presence.
Facing the future
Often making decisions can fill us with fear or dread and we often put these off. Other times, decisions have been made for us, such as redundancy, divorce or other circumstances such as remaining childless when we had hoped or planned for a family.
Navigating our future possibilities can be tough when we might struggle to do this alone, so counselling can help you to reflect on what you want from life and can help you with planning an alternative future.
What's it like to be in therapy?
Take a look at some frequently asked questions below
Frequently Asked Questions
What is counselling?
Counselling is considered a therapeutic process, and provides a confidential space for you to discuss your thoughts, emotions, relationships and/or life experiences with a trained professional to support you. Counsellors don't 'analyse' you nor diagnose mental health conditions, rather we ask questions such as "when did you notice feeling like this?" or "what's happened?" so we can understand your circumstances and help you to look at things from a non-medical perspective, for example if you have felt low in mood.
How does it work?
Your therapist will help you explore what you want to achieve from therapy. There are many different styles of counselling and psychotherapy, and different tools and techniques available. Your therapist will discuss options with you, so you can decide on your preferred approach. Therapists work with you to provide the space and time you need to explore your concerns and ultimately help you to move forwards in a way that feels right for you.
Exploring the past, present and future
Counselling can involve talking about past experiences, current situations or concerns or look at any fears about the future. You'll be supported to safely discuss the issues that are troubling you and be provided with tools to help with managing your emotions and feeling safe in the therapy space.
It's not all plain sailing.
The process of undergoing therapy isn't always plain sailing. It can often bring up unexpected emotions. For many people it can be difficult to express themselves or acknowledge their true feelings. Counsellors are great at listening and hold a safe and confidential space for you to express how you really feel and help you develop healthy responses.
How often should I attend?
Therapy sessions are typically arranged on a weekly basis for up to an hour each session (depending on the format agreed) and aim to fully understand and address your issues or circumstances over a number of weeks/sessions agreed between you and your therapist.
Is therapy worth it?
Yes! You are worth it. We don't tend to think twice about keeping physically fit, but ignoring your mental health or the warning signs can have longer lasting effects if not addressed. Often difficult emotions arise as a symptom of something else, for example feeling angry could mean we feel some kind of injustice has taken place and we may need to learn to express our feelings in healthier ways.
Will I get along with my therapist?
Good therapy is based on the relationship you have with your therapist. It can take time to build up trust, both in the process of therapy and with each other (client and therapist). But with mutual trust, respect, understanding and a little perseverance this is often a winning combination.
Will my therapist understand me & my issues?
With training & experience in bereavement, childlessness, anxiety, work-place stress, divorce, and of blended families, my journey into counselling has taken place over many years of studying and providing counselling alongside my former career path within the private & charity sectors and working in the NHS.
What is trauma-informed counselling?
We all understand and often use the word 'trauma' in very different ways, and according to Mind (2026), there is no ‘rule’ about what experiences are considered traumatic. Rather; this could be how you may have reacted to situations or events in your life and whether you were supported to process the situation at the time is often key. What's considered traumatic is personal. Other people can't always know how you feel about your own experiences or decide if they are traumatic for you.
You might have similar experiences to someone else but be affected differently or for longer. A personal trauma can include events where you have felt: frightened or under threat, humiliated, rejected or abandoned. It can also include a sense of being invalidated, for example your feelings or views have been dismissed or denied, or where you have felt unsupported, powerless or ashamed. As adults we might look back on a parent's divorce as a child-hood trauma beacause of the ongoing effects experienced as a child.