My working history
I started my counselling training in Hong Kong in 1992, where I subsequently lived for 13 years. Here I gained a great deal of insight into how people in the far East live and think, which I feel informs my work.
After qualifying, I worked in a counselling practice in Hong Kong, where my clients were from very different economic and ethnic backgrounds, Chinese, Western, Filipino, Indonesian and Indian. From these experiences I feel I have some understanding of people from very different cultures to myself.
Whilst in Hong Kong I worked in a women's refuge for migrant workers, where I counseled individuals and took workshops in assertiveness training and self esteem
Because of my background in schools, I have been a teacher for 13 years, I was employed to work for a government assisted charity helping young people with drug addiction, sexual abuse, anorexia and other abusive behaviours. My work involved counselling and taking workshops into secondary schools.
In 2003 onwards I worked for Victim Support as a counsellor and subsequently became free lance in 2006.
My philosophy
I believe that all people have the potential for growth, I know that clients already have coping mechanism that help them deal with their problems, my job is to help clients refine these mechanisms in order to bring about a greater success in dealing with their problems.
My approach aims to move individuals towards a greater degree of independence and assist them in their personal growth by equipping them with the tools necessary to cope with problems they are currently facing and any future problems.
My theoretical orientation is mainly Person Centred, which is a humanistic approach to counselling where the client is really listened to and is accepted for who they are. There is an emphasis on the importance of the therapeutic relationship between the client and the counsellor, through this therapeutic relationship, based on trust, the client and counsellor are able to work collaboratively to help the client move on.
I also use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) as I find it a useful approach to some problems.
"CBT can help you change how you think(cognitive) and what you do (behaviour) These changes can help you to feel better. It focuses on the 'here and now' problems and difficulties instead of focusing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind now." www.ropsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinformation/therapies
