My counselling approach is humanistic, which for me means I value the uniqueness and individual experience of people. I draw from existential-phenomenological thinking, which focuses on what it means to exist in the world as a human being here in the present moment.

Humanistic counselling emerged in the 1950s as a response to psychoanalysis. Whereas psychoanalysis may be viewed as a theory of mind, I see the humanistic approach as a philosophy of being. It shifts the focus from interpreting to experiencing. I am interested in how our past experiences, through childhood and later life, can affect our lives in the present so I do value psychoanalytic theory and feel it can be very helpful. However my core way of working is humanistic so I pay particular attention to what you are experiencing right now. 

I see you as the expert in your own life. I feel that by raising awareness of the way things are, a person’s capacity for change and growth can emerge naturally.