What To Expect From Counselling

If you have never had counselling before it can feel daunting and a little off-putting.  Counselling, is a wonderfully enriching and powerful process that works through the value of being heard and understood. Counselling is time for you, just one hour in the day that the focus is completely on you and your feelings.

Person centred counselling is client-led which means you have complete autonomy to decide if you do or don’t want to discuss something, if you want to end the counselling process or if you just want to sit quietly and contemplate. The point is, you are in control and I’ll move at your pace. This is because person-centred counselling believes you are your own expert – no-one else can ever truly understand what it means to be you or the experiences you’ve been through. 

As your counsellor, I will listen, be curious and attempt to understand your pain as you feel it.  I will create a safe place that you feel secure and trusting of, so you are able to open up and explore your thoughts and feelings, that we are quick to bury away deep inside.  Feeling seen and heard (often for the first time) will enable you to gain clarity and acceptance, helping you to feel worthy again.  The therapeutic relationship is key to your healing process and I will be respectful of you and your feelings at all times, never critical or judgemental.

Should you choose me as your counsellor, each 50-minute session will be spent talking about your life, feelings  and anything you feel is important to you. Slowly over time, we will unravel events and build your self-awareness up so you start to change limiting patterns of behaviour, strengthen your boundaries and identify what makes you feel stronger, happier, calmer, healthier.

For maximum impact, it is recommended that counselling sessions take place weekly, at least in the early days. The first session I will explain what I can and cannot do as a professional, ethical and qualified counsellor. I will talk to you about confidentiality, limits to this and also how I store personal information in line with GDPR. I will ask some questions to get a feel for what has brought you to counselling as well as understanding what you may want to achieve; for example, “I want to feel less angry” or “I want to stop worrying”. Once we have covered this, subsequent sessions really are in your hands.  Whatever you wish to discuss, we can do so.