FAQ

For specific information about my work with young people, please see the Young People section of this web site, including FAQs – Young People and FAQ – Parents and Guardians.

How many sessions will i need?

If you have a single problem you wish to work through, we could discuss having therapy for a fixed time period; ideally the work would cover at least 6 sessions.

Open-ended work has no fixed period, and is suitable for people wishing to work holistically with life changes or traumas, for instance. Throughout open-ended therapy we will regularly assess the work in our sessions and what you wish to happen going forward.

If you can’t attend your session, please let me know as soon as possible. There is a minimum 24-hour notice period, after which your session will be charged in full. In exceptional circumstances I may be able to reschedule your appointment.

You can talk about anything you’d like to.

 Sessions are 50 minutes in length.

I use the 10 minutes after you leave to make notes, and I spend time preparing before you arrive. This is standard practice within the counselling profession.

Fees range between £60-100 for a 50-minute counselling and psychotherapy session, dependent on the mode of therapy, travel requirements and whether liaison with a healthcare provider is required. Two reduced-cost places are offered at £40, there may be a waiting list for these.

Payment by bank transfer is preferred, alternatively, cash is accepted at appointments (change may not always be available).

Please see details on fees and payment

Prepayment by bank transfer is preferred.

Cash and cheques are accepted at appointments.

All clients are kindly requested to make payment in full within 24 hours of an appointment. This includes payments for missed appointments (unless adequate notice has been given – see ‘What if I can’t attend my session?’, above).

Heartseed counselling abides by the BACP ethical framework.

Contact details are also available here if you wish to seek advice or make a complaint about therapy.

What is person-centred counselling?

“the individual has within himself or herself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering his or her self-concept, attitudes and self-directed behavior – and these resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided” 

– Carl Rogers, founder of person-centred therapy

Person-centred counselling is a type of therapy that uses the therapeutic relationship and the client’s expertise about themselves to gain an understanding of what is happening in their world. Sessions are led by whatever the client feels is important to talk about, and becomes a collaborative, empathic relationship to help the client face difficulties, make changes and find a way forward at a pace that is best for them. Key concepts include warmth, authenticity and understanding, self-healing and personal growth, listening, accepting, understanding and sharing.

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible…. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

– Viktor Frankl, Existential theorist and practitioner

 

Existential therapy focuses on the struggle we have as humans and our place in the world: physically, socially, personally and spirituality. Existential therapy seeks meaning through the unique lens of the client’s individual experience and sense of life. With roots in holocaust experience, this can be an empowering way to facilitate the resources within you to gain new insights and a greater awareness of your choices. Key concepts are concerned with freedom, responsibility, anxiety, isolation, meaning and death.

“Cognitive therapy seeks to alleviate psychological tensions by correcting misconceptions. By correcting erroneous beliefs, we can end the overreactions “

 

– Aaron Beck, ‘father’ of CBT

 

CBT is a type of talking therapy that focuses on how your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes affect your feelings and behaviour. In CBT you work with a therapist to identify and challenge any negative thinking patterns and behaviour that may be causing you difficulties, and learn coping skills for dealing with different problems. This can change the way you feel about situations, and enable you to change your behaviour in future.

 

It combines cognitive therapy (examining the things you think) and behaviour therapy (examining the things you do).

Psychodynamic therapy examines patterns in emotions, thoughts, and beliefs in order to gain insight into the client’s inner world. The client’s childhood and early life experiences are held as extremely influential in the psychological development and functioning of an adult.

Psychodynamic therapy aims to help the client identify important pieces of the puzzle that makes them who they are, and rearrange them in ways that allow the client to form a more functional and positive sense of self.

“Integrative therapy is a progressive form of psychotherapy that combines different therapeutic tools and approaches to fit the needs of the individual client… an integrative therapist modifies standard treatments to fill in development gaps that affect each client in different ways. By combining elements drawn from different schools of psychological theory and research, integrative therapy becomes a more flexible and inclusive approach to treatment than more traditional, singular forms of psychotherapy.”

 – Psychotherapy Today

On a simplistic level, integration is the process of making whole. Integrative Psychotherapy makes use of a variety of psychological approaches and practices to address the varied needs of each client as an individual. It is focused on responding appropriately and effectively to the whole person. An Integrative approach requires a therapist to be trained in a number of approaches and be able to draw on what is helpful for each client.

it was the many conversations I’ve had over the past 30 years with depressed, anxious, lost and lonely people that convinced me that the one core element they seemed to lack was the ability to be kind, gentle, warm and compassionate with themselves.”
― Paul A. Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind

CFT can help develop the key skills of compassion, self-compassion, and mindfulness for the treatment of mood disorders and anxiety; it can also help people who are especially prone to self-criticism and shame to manage those feelings and behaviours. The modality focuses on developing one’s regulation system to self-soothe, rather than having a hyperfocus on threat .

“In the therapy hour—once the child has established confidence in the therapist and has accepted the therapist even as she has accepted him—he shares his inner world with her “
— Virginia M. Axline

Play is children’s main form of communicating.  Children can tell us about their world through play long before they are able to find words to express their experiences. Play provides opportunities for exploring, experimentation, building skills and gaining a sense of control Play is a part of how a child’s makes sense of their world and who they are in it.  It is also a way of exploring how others can be different from them.  Play therapy can help build relationship skills, develop trust, instil respect, encourage empathy, and open communication and co-operation. This form of counselling allows children to engage with developmentally appropriate forms of communication through play in a safe and inviting environment for them.

“The Four Basic Goals of IFS 1.​Liberate parts from the roles they’ve been forced into, so they can be who they’re designed to be. 2.​Restore trust in the Self and Self-leadership. 3.​Reharmonize the inner system. 4.​Become more Self-led in your interactions with the world.”

― Richard C. Schwartz, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

Internal family systems therapy works with the multi-faceted elements of being a person. While holding that we all have a core Self that cannot be damaged and is calm, connected and compassionate, we also have other ‘parts’ that play roles in our everyday life – parts that try to manage or control and parts that we might try to hide or shut down. While these parts have good intentions, and usually try to work for our good they can become extreme and overprotective, making it difficult for us to access our core Self. IFS attempts to welcome all parts while finding an internal equilibrium where we feel we our working from the best version of what we are made of.

“EMDR therapy targets the unprocessed memories that contain the negative emotions, sensations and beliefs. By activating the brain’s information processing system the old memories can then be “digested.” Meaning what is useful is learned, what’s useless is discarded, and the memory is now stored in a way that is no longer damaging.”

― Francine Shapiro, Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, commonly known as EMDR, is a therapy that uses bi-lateral stimulation to treat conditions related to traumatic memories. It can be helpful with the results of trauma, including PTSD; but also with grief, depression, anxiety, phobias and eating disorders

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