Counselling

Counsellor: Lesley Charlesworth.

Counselling is a process which involves the helping skills of caring, listening and reflecting. It’s based on listening to the client and a trusting relationship between the client and the counsellor. A counsellor will be supportive but will give little or no direct advice since the aim of counselling is to help us develop our own insight into our problems. They help us ‘refind’ our own resources within, (resources we often forget we’ve got) and so enable us to approach our lives and problems in a fresh way.

Counselling involves very human skills - like knowing how to ask the right questions and when - and these are highly developed through training and experience. The counselling relationship is used to explore personal problems, to enable us to make sense of our unhappiness.

One of the main aims of counselling is to guide us from feeling victims of circumstances to feeling we have some control over our lives.So in the course of counselling we can reassess our ‘coping skills’ - how we deal with problems, challenges, relationships, work - and learn ways that are more effective.

Sessions usually last 50-60 minutes, once a week for a period of weeks or months, depending on the need and how the counsellor works. All counselling is totally confidential.

What is the difference between counselling and psychotherapy? In practice counselling and psychotherapy overlap. Both can help us deal with our problems in a fresh way and enrich our lives generally. But where counselling tends to focus on a specific current problem, psychotherapy tends to look at more deep-seated issues.

For more details please contact 07956 218409