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Mondays to Wednesdays - online video or phone sessions only.

Thursdays in person in Totnes or online video or phone sessions.  

Hello, thank you for looking at my page and for being curious. I have worked as a counsellor in private practice since 2011 and continue to see clients in central Totnes one day a week and online through video platforms. I have a background in nursing in the NHS, having worked in the specialty of cancer and cancer clinical trials for many years, though I am now retired from nursing. I work exclusively with adult individuals.

My approach is ‘talk therapy’, which aims to understand with compassion how your troubles have come about. Firstly, by exploring your story and whatever you choose to share and then by looking at ways of coping with or managing your troubles. Within a safe space of caring, trust and confidentiality I try to come alongside you, respecting your level of comfort, either in person or online. Counselling can bring new insights to and awareness of our troubles and can help us understand our behaviour and that of others. Talking to someone who appreciates the human condition can help to strengthen and heal parts of ourselves or to let go of painful feelings. Through counselling we can regain our confidence, trust, self-worth and self-belief by accessing our inner resources and coping strategies.

These are my main areas of speciality:

• relationship difficulties which are commonly at the heart of our distress and affect how we feel about ourselves;

• specific negative effects of being in a relationship with someone who has coercive controlling behaviour, narcissistic tendencies or personality disorders, where often the advice is ‘to see a therapist’;

• Trauma. I am 'trauma-informed' and not a specialist therapist in trauma. More is known now about the long-term effects of both single event trauma (PTSD) and developmental trauma, or complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). Whether it be a specific shocking and frightening one-off event or emotional and other types of abuse, protracted neglect, abandonment, rejection and hurt which may be in the distant past, the impact on our mental health can be marked. I mostly work with clients who have complex trauma often related to childhood but not exclusively.

• the effects of short- and long-term grief and loss. Losses come in different forms and not just through bereavement of a loved one.

My counselling room is in a therapy practice on the second floor with a waiting room for clients on the first floor.

In the first session I will ask you to tell me what brings you to counselling.  I will then ask some details about your circumstances, family history and a short risk assessment.  I will give you some information about how I work and some of my 'terms and conditions' regarding confidentiality, cancellation policy, data protection etc.  At the end of the session will then decide if we can work together going forward.