All people experience difficulties at times in their lives and within their lives with others, whether that be within their:

-family relationships with their (son/daughter, sister/brother, mother/father)

-within friendships or peer groups

-within their relationship with a partner, girl/boyfriend, husband or wife

- Or simply within their everyday work life with work colleagues.

Similarly, sometimes, we, ourselves, simply feel that we are making our own lives difficult and are looking for some other way of being which feels both different and yet more satisfying for us.

 

Despite our own awareness that we can all experience difficulties at times, there is often little comfort held within this knowledge and we can often continue to feel held in isolation by a problem/problems or difficulties that we have. This feeling of isolation can tend to bring with it feelings of helplessness, anxiety, anger, depression and sometimes despair; all of which seek only to increase the weight of our problem.

• Counselling can offer a feeling of relief to us when we feel confused or lost at times of actual, individual need. Afterall, this is often what we are looking for; a positive sense or consistent feeling of change.

• Taking the decision to instigate change within our busy lives and awarding ourselves the space to work with our thoughts, feelings and actions, can be an importantly decisive moment in tackling desired change(s) for anyone of us and one which can safely be shared within the counselling relationship.

• Counselling is a space for you to be yourself with your thoughts and feelings, with the added therapeutic support of the counsellor. It is a space for you to feel safe and one in which you can feel respected and accepted without judgement.

• Counselling gives space to explore aspects of ourselves so that we can know ourselves better. It is often by developing insight into our own thoughts/emotions and behaviours that we can learn new ways of being so that we can live our lives with increasing resourcefulness and satisfaction.

• Counselling can also be a place of great healing and although we cannot change our pasts, it is a place where we can overcome the past to have a freer concept of ourselves in the present and future.

• People come to counselling for a wide range of issues. Those areas in which I work with people, include that of:

• Self Esteem	Anxiety	Depression (including Post-Natal Depression and health-related depression)
  Sleep Disturbance	Low mood/agitation	Loss (e.g. of home, job, status/role, through divorce/separation, termination, miscarriage, still birth, abortion, fertility issues, physical impairment/disability and loss of health)
  Bereavement	Trauma (PTSD)	Stress
  Anger Management	Conflict resolution	Relationship issues
  Sexual violence/abuse	Bullying	Compulsive Behaviour
  Negative thoughts	Loss of meaning in life	Life Transitions (i.e. the impact of leaving home, starting college/university, moving in with your partner/married life, a new baby, retirement etc)