What can counselling offer?

Let us help?​

If you are reading this, you are probably wondering whether it’s going to help talking to someone outside of your immediate family and friends.

You may be trying to get on with your life but something is stopping you …  anxiety is eating you up, trying to keep you safe but at the same time stopping you living.  Long term stress is taking it’s toll on your body and suddenly you have depression, chronic pain or illness to cope with.  Perhaps you have suffered trauma in the past that you manage to contain, but it catches up with you when you least expect it, shaming and making you small, too hard to dig up, too painful to share.  If you’ve lost someone you were close to, whether the relationship ended, or they died, there is a huge adjustment to life without them, and sometimes the loss feels crippling and endless.  

We are all here designed to co-exist and rely on each other, but not all of us have equal luck or priviledge,  or nurturing parents.  Sometimes our differences alienate us from those around us and our struggles to survive separate us from our support systems and leave us lonely and exposed.   We find coping mechanisms, humans are very adaptable, but these often damage us in the long term and sometimes the people who are supposed to care for us are the ones who hurt us the most.

That is where the counselling relationship comes into it’s own.  Imagine stepping out of your life for an hour and spending it with someone who is dedicated to you, without conditions or judgement.  This person is a professional, highly trained, but also human and fallible, just like you.   To them you are valuable, worthy of listening to, and they will hold a safe space for your feelings.    They won’t tell you what to do, but they will work with you to make things better and here your privacy and anonymity will be protected.

How it works

Counselling can be delivered in a number of different ways and some will work better for you than others. We can adapt to suit you, whether it be telephone, or Video link or face to face. You don’t need any special software or equipment.

Videolink: We use secure platforms, such as Google Meet. We will send you a link a few days before and all you need to do is click on the link and press ‘join’ to come into the session. This method works best on a laptop or tablet where you have a reasonable size screen and built-in or separate webcam. It can be done on your smartphone as second choice if you don’t have a laptop or tablet. You will need a private room where you won’t be overheard or disturbed and a password protected log in, if you are using a shared computer.

Phone: you will need a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted and you can sit comfortably and talk without being overheard. If you are using your mobile phone then you will need to be in a place with a reasonable signal strength so that we can hear each other.

Face to face: Availability of face to face counselling will depend upon where you live and whether it’s convenient for you to get to the counselling room. We have a private, comfortable room in Hamlet Road, central Haverhill with off-street parking and toilets. It is very close to the main shopping area and bus links.

If you need an accessible room, we also have use of a room at the Epicentre Haverhill up to 4 pm where there is parking, level access for impaired mobility, and an accessible washroom.

Walk and Talk: Walk and talk therapy is held outdoors in a public green space and gives you a chance to connect with nature whilst participating in your counselling session. It is held at a pace that suits both client and therapist, and a view will be taken on the day if the ground conditions or weather might make the session unviable. Mutually agreeable venues can be discussed at assessment stage and risk assessments will be carried out for the particular factors relating to working outdoors .

We believe that your privacy and personal data should be protected at all costs which is why all counsellors are answerable to their professional body and agree to be be bound by their code of ethics, values and principles. This will be explained to you during your first session and you can ask to see a copy of the Code of Ethical Conduct. We take the GDPR (data protection) regulation very seriously and we each register with the Information Commissioner’s Office. We only keep minimal information on our clients, and any notes are anonymised to protect your identity. There are only a few exceptions where we would need to disclose information, such as if we were aware that someone was going to come to serious harm or a law might be broken.