COUNSELLING

Counselling provides a space to talk about anything at all that is troubling you. It’s different than a relationship with a friend or a partner. Perhaps it’s difficult to be truly open and honest with those who know you. Or maybe people are well-intentioned but tend to offer solutions or their own experiences when all you want is to be heard.

I am trained to listen to both what you say and how you say it - I want to really understand what it’s like to walk in your shoes. Sometimes simply feeling understood can be hugely powerful and validating.

The great Carl Rogers spoke of the potential for growth, once unconditional love and acceptance, genuineness, and empathy are present:

‘As the client finds someone else listening acceptingly to his feelings, he little by little becomes able to listen to himself – to realize he IS angry, to recognise when he IS frightened, even to realise when he IS feeling courageous. As he becomes more open to what is going on inside himself, he becomes able to listen to feelings which he has always denied and repressed. He can listen to feelings which have seemed to him so terrible or so disorganising or so abnormal or so shameful that he has never been able to recognise their existence in himself. While he is listening to himself, he becomes more acceptant of himself. As he expresses more and more of the hidden and awful aspects of himself, he finds the therapist showing a consistent and unconditional positive regard for him and his feelings. Slowly he moves towards taking the same attitude towards himself, accepting himself as he is...’