alp|counselling
support and understanding for life's ups and downs
face-to-face and online or telephone counselling
- you are not alone; there is hope -
These are some of the issues we can work on together.
Counselling and you
Welcome to this site where you can find information to help you consider if counselling is the help you need for what's happened to you, what you're facing or what you're feeling right now. Whether you've had counselling before or never thought about it until now, counselling can help you. Sometimes we may feel battered by life, or unfulfilled or maybe cannot identify a specific problem but just have a sense of unease, no longer know who we are or feel we've lost ourselves on life's road. These feelings are often what brings people to seek counselling.
Counselling offers a regular time and space to focus on yourself within a non-judgemental, confidential environment, set apart from your day-to-day life. It offers you the opportunity to reflect and process your experiences, allowing personal growth.
What kind of issues can be helped?
It can be hard to limit human experiences to a list of issues, however anything which causes emotional distress, be that sadness, disappointment, anger, confusion, low self-worth or overwhelm - counselling can help. Life events such as new relationships, relationship-breakdown, children, difficult childhood experiences, infertility, bereavements or losses, disappointments, unemployment, work-related pressures, financial hardships, aging, ill health, addictions, bullying, domestic abuse, spiritual matters - this is not an exhaustive list but some of the events which life can throw at us and which a counsellor can support you through or help you come to terms with, so you can move forwards.
Unsure which way to turn or whether counselling is for you?
Get in touch for a no obligation chat. Just click on the 'contact' button at the top right of the page for all the ways to make contact.
Introducing Alison
I'm a fully qualified integrative counsellor and a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy; all my work is guided by their code of ethics and key to all therapy is the commitment to confidentiality.
When choosing a counsellor it is important to find someone you feel comfortable with and who you find easy to talk to. My way of working is to believe all people have within them the ability to resolve their own problems and determine their own direction for their lives and that counselling is a way of helping identify the origin of difficulties and determining options. I assist clients to notice and experience feelings, to reflect on their past and childhood so that we can identify patterns of behaviour together, enabling clients to consider changes they may wish to make. There are no taboo topics and I will support your exploration of what troubles you, bringing my skills and expertise to help with self-understanding.
I trained as a counsellor because I had experienced how helpful counselling was when going through a distressing time in my life. Whilst I don't have personal experience of every life event I have experienced difficulties, made peace with changes and losses and grown personally as a result. I know that life can be messy. I know how much courage it takes to make that first step and ask for help and what a relief it is to find there is help.
And one more thing - I just can't help liking books, sometimes buying books which I never get round to reading! I love the uniqueness of people; that each of us is our own story, I feel privileged to be a counsellor, helping people make sense of their own story or to start writing a new one. Lastly I love a quiet moment with a cappuccino.
February Quote of the Month
'I could not rescue people from their pain and sadness. all I could offer was to walk beside them as a fellow human being, a kindred spirit'
~Liz Evans~
I have signed the ERNI declaration. I have joined with others who believe that human distress is NOT illness.
Twitter: @ernimovement
Email: ernimovement@gmail.com
'Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul' Emily Dickinson
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