An Opportunity
You are here, and that means that you are already stepping into a fertile environment for clarity, psychological healing and change.
Clarity Healing Self Awareness Personal Growth TRANSFORMATION Well-being Confidence Compassion POSSIBILITY Meditation Self-Worth Change
An opportunity
Hello! You are here, and that means that you are already stepping into a fertile environment for clarity, psychological healing and change. Engaging in any kind of therapy or change work is an opportunity to be critically reflective in an atmosphere of warmth, compassion and understanding - a trusting safe space where the focus is upon you, your dilemma, distress, or whatever you have sought to explore.
Explore challenges that life, relationships, & some patterns of behaviour create.
Take a journey that can lead to greater understanding, clarity & self-awareness.
Create a space in your life to make changes with confidence & support.
Take a journey that can lead to greater understanding, clarity & self-awareness.
Create a space in your life to make changes with confidence & support.
What kind of practitioner am I?
I am BACP registered and accredited counsellor and psychotherapist. Bringing together my training and research as a Person-centred therapist, experience as a personal development trainer, and studies in Philosophy, my style of therapy is like a one-to-one personal consultancy, exploring your needs, dilemmas, and challenges that you may experiencing right now.
Engaging in this work is a way to help you explore options for a way forward, with an aim for you to work towards what really matters in your life, and make no mistake I trust you, your inner resources and the therapeutic process to be the major force in your change process. I will work with you to look more closely at the complexity of your thoughts and feelings, aid you to identify meaning and value in your life, consider options and choices. In addition to person-centred counselling, I also have training in, and have taught other models of counselling including existential & phenomenological, psychodynamic, gestalt and CBT. I also offer meditation within sessions if this is something of interest to you. Click here for more details.
Engaging in this work is a way to help you explore options for a way forward, with an aim for you to work towards what really matters in your life, and make no mistake I trust you, your inner resources and the therapeutic process to be the major force in your change process. I will work with you to look more closely at the complexity of your thoughts and feelings, aid you to identify meaning and value in your life, consider options and choices. In addition to person-centred counselling, I also have training in, and have taught other models of counselling including existential & phenomenological, psychodynamic, gestalt and CBT. I also offer meditation within sessions if this is something of interest to you. Click here for more details.
Confidential Counselling & Psychotherapy in Cambridge
Here are some examples of issues I work with as a counsellor in Cambridge:
relationship difficulties - present & historical
(inc romantic, friendship, family, work-related)
decision making & life choices
anxiety, panic & stress
divorce and separation
depression
bereavement & loss
gender and sexuality
self-esteem & issues of confidence
trauma
abuse - present & historical
health & illness
(inc romantic, friendship, family, work-related)
decision making & life choices
anxiety, panic & stress
divorce and separation
depression
bereavement & loss
gender and sexuality
self-esteem & issues of confidence
trauma
abuse - present & historical
health & illness
Clients across the generations, from a struggling student to a stressed-out executive have sought to work with their own change process and explore the nature of who they are and how they wish life to be. My work is open to anyone over the age of 18years who is struggling with life at the moment. I can also work with clients via their employer insurance companies: Vitality, Aviva, Aetna, and AXA.
*What stories are you telling yourself about your life or those around you?
*What experience are you having in your body
that stops you from living as fully as you would like to?
*What is happening in your relating with others
that isn’t as rewarding as you would like it to be?
*What are your hopes, aspirations, dreams and desires?
*What experience are you having in your body
that stops you from living as fully as you would like to?
*What is happening in your relating with others
that isn’t as rewarding as you would like it to be?
*What are your hopes, aspirations, dreams and desires?
Couples Counselling
Couples therapy can provide invaluable insight into the workings of your relationship, whether familial, friendship, romantic, marriage, heterosexual or same sex. How we relate to one another has a profound impact on our wellbeing and function in the world and choosing the option to look at it more deeply is a courageous step. Couples come to counselling for all kinds of reasons and do not have to wait until crisis point of staying or leaving is reached. Couples counselling is offered to any couple wishing to take a deep look at their relationship and its workings.
Whilst the past necessarily influences the present, my approach with couples is to work in the here and now and explore the intricate dynamic between you such as - what habits of relating do you have individually and together? What patterns have you fallen into? What matters to you most? How do you hear one another? Where are you not hearing? What do you want from each other? What are you experiencing in your body as you relate to each other? These are all possible questions that may be implicit if you choose to embark upon couples counselling, and I look forward to exploring with you whatever seems difficult in your relationship right now.
Whilst the past necessarily influences the present, my approach with couples is to work in the here and now and explore the intricate dynamic between you such as - what habits of relating do you have individually and together? What patterns have you fallen into? What matters to you most? How do you hear one another? Where are you not hearing? What do you want from each other? What are you experiencing in your body as you relate to each other? These are all possible questions that may be implicit if you choose to embark upon couples counselling, and I look forward to exploring with you whatever seems difficult in your relationship right now.
Supervision & Reflective Practice in Cambridge
Supervision is a necessary, valuable and intrinsic part of our work as therapists. Like you, I value it highly, even when it feels challenging and uncomfortable. I value a supportive and encouraging relationship with my supervisor so that I can best aid clients through their own change process in a safe and professional manner. As a qualified and experienced supervisor too, I offer clinical supervision to other counsellors and psychotherapists, and also to anyone, in any profession wishing to engage in a supervisory reflective practice. Click here for more details.
Meditation & Creative Visualisation
To aid your change process I offer what can be described as active relaxation or creative visualisation which is derived from my training in cognitive hypnotherapy. Used in the context of addressing specific stress-related issues, anxiety and fear, this type of active relaxation is about creative visualisation and positive affirmation, and is goal specific.
Click here for further details.How many sessions will you need?
The number of sessions is entirely in your power. For counselling some clients find that 10 sessions are enough to address their concern and find a way through. Others find 20-30 sessions of psychotherapy is of help to identify and address more ingrained issues and habits that seem to impede their life somehow. There are other clients that see this work as a personal development consultancy and use the work as part of their own self-care and development long term and we can find ourselves working together for a year or more.
I am always open to discussion about tailor-made longer sessions if this is something that you are interested in, and fees will be adjusted accordingly.
I am always open to discussion about tailor-made longer sessions if this is something that you are interested in, and fees will be adjusted accordingly.
Workshops
As a Counselling Lecturer and Trainer I have extensive experience in training counsellors and aiding them through their own journey of self-awareness and personal development. I have taught on all levels of training programs and facilitated large groups in personal development workshops and therapeutic group process. I am currently a registered tutor with Cambridge University's Institute of Continuing Education and teach on a variety of programmes.
Click here for more info
Fiction Therapy for Writers
Bring your character to psychotherapy!
As a therapist and writer, I work with other writers to aid character development for their novels and short stories. This work can help with stuckness when writing and can aid with the development of plot, story and especially dialogue. Combining my education and experience in the philosophical and the psychotherapeutic field, our dialogue will naturally lead to exploring what it is to be human at a deeper level, what matters to your character as an individual, as part of a relationship or group, as a gendered, political, and emotionally fragile being. This encounter provides an opportunity to examine all the experiential tensions that your character may be holding just by virtue of existing - in fact tensions that we all hold as human beings.
Fictional characters must appear real and believable for your reader to invest in them. Engagement in a session like this can help you really tap into the inner life of your character:
Fictional characters must appear real and believable for your reader to invest in them. Engagement in a session like this can help you really tap into the inner life of your character:
* Develop a more authentic character in your writing.
* Get to know your character that you are writing about at a deeper experiential level.
* Understand your character’s history, motives and aspirations.
* How does your character feel?
* How do they communicate?
* What is important to them?
* What triggers deeper emotions within them?
* Get to know your character that you are writing about at a deeper experiential level.
* Understand your character’s history, motives and aspirations.
* How does your character feel?
* How do they communicate?
* What is important to them?
* What triggers deeper emotions within them?
Get under the skin of your creation to aid your writing.
This work is moment to moment birthing so that the natural, unique qualities and quirks of your character can appear in a more spontaneous manner rather than being contrived or constrained by stereotypical descriptions.
How it works...
You can book a one-off hour long session for your character. I don't need to know any details up front about your creation. This makes it a more authentic experience for you and your character. You can arrive as him or her with whatever the character would like to talk about. The first ten minutes will be about you and I settling in and me explaining how I work. We will then get into session and I will work with your character for the remaining fifty minutes, in the here and now, in an authentic manner so you can tap into the character in an experiential way. You are free to record the session so that you can replay the dialogue and/or transcribe for further development.
I strongly advise transcribing the session afterwards as you will really get to know your character and feel them as you write. As you transcribe, other details and ideas will naturally come to you for further exploration and development.
I strongly advise transcribing the session afterwards as you will really get to know your character and feel them as you write. As you transcribe, other details and ideas will naturally come to you for further exploration and development.
This what a previous client had to say of the service....
"Thank you so much for the therapy session with my fictional character. It has been of great help to explore the character's possible issues and consequently examine different perspectives. Not only has it been very inspiring as to what directions my narrative might take, it has been very practical as well. From our 50 minute session I have around 6000 words of dialogue which I can structure in several ways without losing a realistic flow. From this experience I can say it is a very exciting approach to fiction writing and I hope more writers will benefit from this experimental method."
Blanka Pesja (MA Ed) - www.blankapesja.com Click here
Senior Educator
Conservatoire of Amsterdam
Blanka Pesja (MA Ed) - www.blankapesja.com Click here
Senior Educator
Conservatoire of Amsterdam
About Me...
Experience
I began my early career in the NHS as a Personal Development Trainer, followed by starting my own company in training and marketing. After a career break to establish my family and undertake academic study and research, I worked as an independent Philosophical Counsellor and Life Coach and this work still underpins my practice as a counsellor and psychotherapist. As a Counsellor I have worked with clients in an NHS GP Medical setting and established a substantial private practice in Shrewsbury before relocating to Cambridge in 2015. I have worked with insurance companies to support clients referred from EAP schemes and Occupational Health departments. Ia m also part of counselling & wellbeing team at Anglia Ruskin University.
As a counselling lecturer, I have taught counselling/therapy to qualified practitioner and degree level, and have delivered CPD workshops in Philosophy for Therapists and Trainees. I am currently teach at Cambridge University's Institute of Continuing Education and teach on a variety of courses that run at Madingley Hall.
I am also a writer and have published reviews and articles in Self & Society (journal for humanistic psychology), The Journal for Existential Analysis (SEA), the journal for Person-Centered Experiential Psychotherapies (PCEP), and I have recently co-written and co-edited with Manu Bazzano, a collection of essays about philosophy and therapy - Therapy and the Counter-Tradition: The Edge of Philosophy (2016) published by Routledge (see sidebar for details) and contributed in Re-visioning Person-Centred Therapy: Theory and Practice of a Radical Paradigm (2018). My new book Fifty Minutes will be published May/June 2020.
I began my early career in the NHS as a Personal Development Trainer, followed by starting my own company in training and marketing. After a career break to establish my family and undertake academic study and research, I worked as an independent Philosophical Counsellor and Life Coach and this work still underpins my practice as a counsellor and psychotherapist. As a Counsellor I have worked with clients in an NHS GP Medical setting and established a substantial private practice in Shrewsbury before relocating to Cambridge in 2015. I have worked with insurance companies to support clients referred from EAP schemes and Occupational Health departments. Ia m also part of counselling & wellbeing team at Anglia Ruskin University.
As a counselling lecturer, I have taught counselling/therapy to qualified practitioner and degree level, and have delivered CPD workshops in Philosophy for Therapists and Trainees. I am currently teach at Cambridge University's Institute of Continuing Education and teach on a variety of courses that run at Madingley Hall.
I am also a writer and have published reviews and articles in Self & Society (journal for humanistic psychology), The Journal for Existential Analysis (SEA), the journal for Person-Centered Experiential Psychotherapies (PCEP), and I have recently co-written and co-edited with Manu Bazzano, a collection of essays about philosophy and therapy - Therapy and the Counter-Tradition: The Edge of Philosophy (2016) published by Routledge (see sidebar for details) and contributed in Re-visioning Person-Centred Therapy: Theory and Practice of a Radical Paradigm (2018). My new book Fifty Minutes will be published May/June 2020.
Professional Affiliations
MBACP (Accred) accredited member
BACP Register accredited by Professional Standards for Health & Social Care
Associate Member of Adlerian Society UK and Institute for Individual Psychology (ASIIP)
Member Association Humanistic Psychology
Qualifications
Post Graduate Diploma in Supervision: (ASIIP accredited);
Certificate in Supervision: (ASIIP accredited);
Certificate Cognitive Hypnotherapy (BPS approved)
Couples Training: The Relational Academy, Cambridge;
Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Counselling (BACP accredited);
Diploma CBT (Oxford College);
MA Humanities: Literature
BA (Hons) in English & Philosophy;
Certificate Training & Development - Institute of Training & Development UK
As part of my on-going commitment to my work I also engage in a minimum of 30 hours continued professional development training per year covering such issues as sexual diversity and identity; ethics; coaching the unconscious mind.
