Our Counsellors
- Billy-Anne Hambleton (CBT & EMDR)
- Veronica Williams
Counselling can help at times of crisis or distress or when dealing with on-going personal difficulties.
Issues such as:
- Abuse
- Anxiety
- Bereavement and loss
- Feeling low
- Low self-esteem and confidence
- Relationship issues
- Stress and work related problems.
CBT
- Billy-Anne Hambleton
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) has been proven to help treat a wide range of emotional and physical health conditions in those of all ages. It is an evidence-based intervention recommended by NICE (The National Institute for Health & Care Excellence).
Generally a short- to medium-term treatment, CBT is mainly concerned with how you think (your cognitions) and act (your behaviour) now, instead of focusing on difficulties in your past. It looks for practical ways to improve your state of mind on a daily basis.
Often described as a talking therapy, CBT is more accurately a talking and doing (behavioural) therapy. This approach requires you to work between sessions to collect evidence of what happens when you think or behave in a particular way. You might be asked to record in diary form what has happened with regard to the issue you are addressing. Together you might design behavioural experiments to try out between sessions.
Changes can then be measured so it can be seen how therapy is working and what needs to happen next to reach your goal, as you build skills and knowledge to manage your situation more effectively.
For further information, see: www.babcp.com - the lead organisation for CBT in the UK
EMDR
- Billy-Anne Hambleton
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an approach first used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, but is now also used to enable children, adolescents and adults to recover from depression, anxiety, phobias, disordered eating, addiction and other symptoms of emotional distress that are the result of difficult life experiences.
When a disturbing experience happens, it is stored in the brain with the sights, sounds, thoughts and feelings that accompany it. Sometimes the brain doesn’t process the experience as it would normally and it is prevented from becoming a memory. The negative thoughts and feelings of the event are trapped in the nervous system and continue to be triggered. It remains a current problem, rather than one that’s in the past. EMDR unlocks the negative memories and emotions, and helps the brain to successfully digest the experience, so the past stops being re-experienced. The goal of EMDR is to leave you with the emotions, understanding, and perspectives that enable healthier functioning.
A person may have experienced events they do not want to talk about. With EMDR, it is possible to process memories without having to talk out loud about them.
Visit the EMDR UK website.
Person Centred Counselling
- Veronica Williams
This approach to counselling is client led and moves away from the idea that the therapist is the expert. Instead the therapist fosters empathy to enter the clients world in a non judgemental, honest manner. Its about providing a safe space where the client feels able to explore and look at any upset or incongruence.
The central truth for Carl Rogers, the originator the approach, was the client knows best. It is the client who knows what hurts and where the pain lies and it is the client who, in the final analysis will discover the way forward. The task of the counsellor is to be the kind of companion who can relate in such a way that the client can access their own wisdom and recover self direction, leading to the client's autonomy.
