Frequently Asked Questions

There are many reasons why someone decides to see a counsellor. It may be that they find a situation occurs in their life that undermines their sense of who they are, they may have questions of where they want to be in life or they just feel they are not coping and life has become such a struggle for instance like repeating destructive patterns in relationships, or feel low, or anxious for no apparent reason. Many people face life events or unexpected changes that are painful and that are difficult to move on from such as break down of a relationship, bereavement or changes at work. Counselling aims to help you make sense of these feelings, exploring past experiences and thinking about where to go from here and how to get there.

Counselling can also help people with unresolved childhood issues that make it hard to cope with day-to-day life or seriously affect the ability to enjoy life. Change becomes possible through increased self-acceptance and deeper understanding of our conscious and unconscious thought processes. Counselling can assist in personal growth and personal awareness, working towards emotional and cognitive fitness and wellness.

Counselling involves a series of formal sessions where I will allow you to talk about your issues and feelings. Even short term therapy typically involves 6 to 12 sessions. The sessions take place at regular agreed time and in a ‘safe’ private place where you and I will not be overheard or interrupted.

Counselling may involve talking about your life events, feelings, emotions, relationships, and ways of thinking and patterns of behaviour. I will listen, encourage and empathise, but will also challenge to help you see your issues more clearly or in a different way.

Counselling is not about giving advice or opinions, nor is it a friendly chat with a friend. I help you to understand yourself better and find your own solutions to resolve or cope with your situation.

There are many different ways of working with clients, usually referred to as ‘theoretical approaches’ or ‘modalities’. Laura works as a Pluralistic Counsellor this means she employs a range of different theories (listed below), methods and practices, according to your needs. This is based on the theory that there is no proof that any one theoretical approach works better than all others for a specific problem.

• Cognitive Therapy
• Existential Therapy
• Gestalt Therapy
• Humanistic Therapy
• NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
• Person-Centred Therapy
• Psychodynamic Psychotherapy/Counselling
• Solution-Focused Brief Therapy
• Transactional Analysis