Counselling

A time for connection, a time to be heard, a time for the transformational power of relatedness

Face to Face

Sessions held at The Old School House
(Hertford St, Oxford, OX4 3AJ)

remote

Telephone counselling, or using video messenging such as through Zoom, Skype, MS Teams or Whatsapp

Some areas I work with

Autism

Autistic people are likely to have faced exclusion, misunderstanding, and having to mask. Counselling can help you to unmask and uncover an acceptance of your true self. Click below to fill in a questionnaire about how your autism affects you to better explain your unique experience of ASC

Anxiety

Perhaps you can't stop thinking or worrying, or you feel intense panic in certain situations that can even feel like a heart attack, or the stresses of life are getting in the way of your living. Person Centred Counselling can help you connect with the parts of you and your life that don't seem to fit and reduce how much those things pull on your attention.

Depression

Maybe you are feeling overwhelmed with a sense of sadness, or numb and life has lost its meaning; you haven't got the drive to reach your goals, and a voice inside you is relentless and self critical. Person Centred Counselling can acknowledge our inner critic and give us more control of it, listen to our feelings so they can speak rather than control us, and help us to find out own unique meanings in life.

Relationships

Perhaps someone treated you poorly or abusively and that's left a mark, maybe a relationship ended and you are grieving; you want to take more control in an existing relationship, or you may find yourself behaving or labelling others in a way you'd like to explore. Person Centred Therapy can help us reclaim our power, examine how our relationships have impacted who we are, and accept some of the things that have happened to us. Many of life's problems are rooted in relationships, and in creating a new relationship we can create the space to heal.

Addiction

Maybe alcohol or drugs feel like they've taken control of your life, or gaming/gambling/ pornography are affecting your finances and relationships; maybe it feels like these things are the only way to soothe intense feelings or you are dependant on them to get by. Person Centred Counselling can provide a safe space to be with your feelings - feelings that we can often lapse on. Community is integral to recovery, but there are some traumas that we wouldn't mention in a group meeting. Therapy can give you this safe space, and help with our awareness of what need our addiction is filling.

Self-Esteem

Perhaps you are struggling to believe in your self or your value. Feelings of guilt and shame, or a critical inner voice that stops you whenever you try to push yourself forwards. Does it feel like you want to make progress in life but something's holding you back? Person Centred Counselling gives us the empathy and acceptance to feel our value and hear our own worth, and challenge that critical voice. It enables us to gently be with the things holding us back and learn compassion for ourselves.

Grief & Loss

Someone has died - perhaps recently or a long time ago but the pangs of grief are still there. Life's meaning has changed or is feeling pointless, or there are things that aren't resolved with that person. Perhaps a relationship ended, or you have lost something valuable like work. Everyone grieves in their own way - no wrong or right. Person Centred Therapy can allow you to grieve as you need to. Talking about your loved one can create a space where they are almost present in the room with us.

common questions

Person Centred Therapy is at your pace. Rather than telling you what to do, or setting you homework, together we will  explore what you would like to bring. It can feel like a relaxed approach to therapy, trusting that we will find what’s important towards your healing through the relationship we develop. You can read more about the approach here or some of the theory here.

Sessions last for one hour.

Weekly works best.
Person Centred Therapy works in relationship and meeting regularly gives us a chance to develop trust and work on things that can be painful. Meeting weekly also gives you time to process between sessions and absorb the learnings into your life. Sometimes when we are working towards an ending, clients have met with me less frequently as they build their independence.

Yes. Counselling values confidentiality above any other profession and you can rest assured that what we speak about goes no further.

When we start working together I will show you an agreement which expands on how your data is stored/ protected and any limitations around that confidentiality.

Contact me via:

*I will aim to get back to you within 24h on a weekday or 48h on a weekend

I charge £45 for a session.

*I am able to offer a concessionary rate of £30 for remote counselling (e.g. Zoom or phone calls) for students, trainee counsellors and people on low incomes.

Payments should be made through bank transfer on or before the day of the session.

Invoice available on request

I wrote an article for Hope on this topic. 

There are a lot of different approaches to counselling and an even greater number of different people doing those approaches. It’s important we fit and that’s one of the reasons I offer a 30m call before we start working together. You can ask yourself some questions such as
What Am I Looking For From Therapy? (what are my hopes, and is this therapist able to help with those)
What Do I Imagine Therapy Looks Like (e.g. are you looking for someone to give you some exercises to work through in a manualised approach, would you like your therapist to be the expert noticing your defences that can trip you up, or are you looking for a relational approach with a therapist who treats you as the expert)?
What Kind of Person Could I Trust and Open up to? (Is it important if a therapist shares a protected characteristic with you e.g. sexuality or culture; is this therapist someone I can relate to or do they not seem to get me, do they remind me of someone and that’s getting in the way?)

A good therapist should take no offence if you’re not the right fit. Every now and again in our work together it can be useful to take a time to review how things are going (are you talking about what you’d like to, does it seem like anything’s shifting, how are you getting on with me and my way of working) so we can adapt and use the relationship to best help you. If you’re finding that I am not the right fit with you, I am happy to make some suggestions of other options.

I work in an open ended way. Some people have found the answers they are looking for after a single session, others have continued using the relationship we develop for their growth in the long term. Some presenting issues are also likely to take longer to work on than others (e.g. doing deep work on trauma is less appropriate for short term). 

I suggest that we originally talk about six sessions and then review where we’re at and how you are finding it.

With remote counselling we can meet up from anywhere in the world.

If you would like to meet in person I counsel from The Old School House (Hertford St, Oxford, OX4 3AJ) which is close to Central Oxford. I book rooms from that address rather than being based there so walk in appointments are unavailable.

I also offer home visits within the ring road

  • For remote counselling I will send you some recommendations for setting up with your chosen way of doing it
  • Children are surprisingly perceptive so I advise making sure they are looked after and not able to disturb you if working remotely. If face to face, I work with individuals and not with partners/children/animals
  • The rooms in The Old School House unfortunately have a set of stairs leading up.
  • There are toilets on the ground floor
  • I provide a bottle of water for in person sessions and the Maple Room has a kettle if you would like hot water
  • Parking is variable depending on other bookings and when we meet on-site. TOSH advise parking on the road which has some 2h Spots
  • I sanitise the chairs before sessions and am happy to open the windows or consider our distance if it helps you feel comfortable in line with covid regulations
  • I provide home visits if you are within the ring road