What is counselling?
Having good counselling is being able to talk to a trained and experienced professional when you are in emotional or mental distress and knowing they will still care for you, give you unconditional understanding and not judge you no matter what you tell them. It's a safe space, time for you to be properly heard and where you can have your thoughts and feelings handled sensitively and respectfully. It's where you can come to be validated and receive respect, without condition and without exception. A good counsellor will listen to what you say and reflect that back so that you can process your thoughts and feelings and then decide if there's anything you want to do or say next
My experience
I have more than 30 years' experience of mentoring prior to earning my foundation degree
in Counselling in 2017, so I am up to date with current best Integrative
practice. As well as being a counsellor, I am currently training to become a level 7 psychotherapist in
Transactional Analysis. I have thousands of direct contact client hours spent on various roles, as
a sexual abuse therapist for New Pathways, a domestic abuse Counsellor on placement for Women’s Aid, a volunteer for Cruse Bereavement Care and as a CBT Trauma Practitioner for The Wallich charity helping rehabilitating homeless people stay in their homes. I work with individuals on a one-to-one basis in my Hereford- based practice Time4u2Talk from pleasant, discrete premises with time between clients, thus ensuring a good degree of privacy and confidentiality.
My experience
I have more than 30 years' experience of mentoring prior to earning my foundation degree
in Counselling in 2017, so I am up to date with current best Integrative
practice. As well as being a counsellor, I am currently training to become a level 7 psychotherapist in
Transactional Analysis. I have thousands of direct contact client hours spent on various roles, as
a sexual abuse therapist for New Pathways, a domestic abuse Counsellor on placement for Women’s Aid, a volunteer for Cruse Bereavement Care and as a CBT Trauma Practitioner for The Wallich charity helping rehabilitating homeless people stay in their homes. I work with individuals on a one-to-one basis in my Hereford- based practice Time4u2Talk from pleasant, discrete premises with time between clients, thus ensuring a good degree of privacy and confidentiality.
My mission statement
"To listen with my mind to think, with my heart to feel, my eyes to see, my lips to show understanding, undivided attention to focus and my ears to hear" (Unknown origin). To build a nurturing relationship with kindness
"To listen with my mind to think, with my heart to feel, my eyes to see, my lips to show understanding, undivided attention to focus and my ears to hear" (Unknown origin). To build a nurturing relationship with kindness
Kevin Duncan's Story
"Many years ago, while I was mending a fence, a small sliver of wood entered into my finger. I made a meagre attempt to remove the sliver and thought I had done so. As time went on, apparently I had not - skin grew over the sliver, creating a lump on my finger. It was annoying and sometimes painful.
Years later I decided to finally take action. All I did was simply apply ointment to the lump and cover it with a bandage. I repeated this process frequently. You cannot imagine my surprise when one day, as I removed the bandage, the sliver had emerged from my finger.
The ointment had softened the skin and created an escape for the very thing that had caused pain for so many years. Once the sliver was removed, the finger quickly healed, and to this day, there remains no evidence of any injury."
In a similar way, a wounded and angry heart harbours so much needless sadness and pain. Anger is a secondary emotion which is often a cover for the primary emotions of dismay, hurt, or fear but it's the one that is the most noticeable so it often gets most of the attention when more often than not other emotions are at the heart of the pain. When we are finally given the time and space to tell our story, without it being brutally torn or prized out of us, and receive the gentle, unconditional understanding and acceptance we yearn for, we can finally discover what really is at the heart and feel understood and heard for perhaps the first time. It is like applying healing ointment. We cannot change what has happened but in time, as the body and mind heals slowly and naturally, we can learn to push out the hurt and make a way for the wound to sweetly close.
"Many years ago, while I was mending a fence, a small sliver of wood entered into my finger. I made a meagre attempt to remove the sliver and thought I had done so. As time went on, apparently I had not - skin grew over the sliver, creating a lump on my finger. It was annoying and sometimes painful.
Years later I decided to finally take action. All I did was simply apply ointment to the lump and cover it with a bandage. I repeated this process frequently. You cannot imagine my surprise when one day, as I removed the bandage, the sliver had emerged from my finger.
The ointment had softened the skin and created an escape for the very thing that had caused pain for so many years. Once the sliver was removed, the finger quickly healed, and to this day, there remains no evidence of any injury."
In a similar way, a wounded and angry heart harbours so much needless sadness and pain. Anger is a secondary emotion which is often a cover for the primary emotions of dismay, hurt, or fear but it's the one that is the most noticeable so it often gets most of the attention when more often than not other emotions are at the heart of the pain. When we are finally given the time and space to tell our story, without it being brutally torn or prized out of us, and receive the gentle, unconditional understanding and acceptance we yearn for, we can finally discover what really is at the heart and feel understood and heard for perhaps the first time. It is like applying healing ointment. We cannot change what has happened but in time, as the body and mind heals slowly and naturally, we can learn to push out the hurt and make a way for the wound to sweetly close.