How I work
I don’t work from the position that I know your life better than you do, you are the expert on your experiences, you bring your story, your wisdom, your values and your lived experience. I bring psychological theory, therapeutic experience and questions that might help us look at things from a different angle and facilitate a space where those experiences can be explored with curiosity, compassion and psychological understanding, and we collaborate together. Together, we create something neither of us could create alone.
I’m not interested in telling you what decisions to make. I won’t decide what your relationships should look like. I won’t tell you what kind of person you should become. I’m not here to impose my values onto your life. Instead, I’ll help you discover what matters to you.
I don’t think my role is to give you a list of instructions or decide what your life should look like. You won’t find me setting homework because I think you ought to do it. But, If reflecting between sessions or trying something new would help, we’ll decide that together. Not because you’re accountable to me, but because it supports what matters to you.
If homework would genuinely help you between sessions, we’ll think about that together. If it doesn’t fit, we won’t do it. Therapy isn’t about pleasing me or being accountable to me. It’s about creating a process that genuinely supports you. I work with people, not on them.
My job isn’t to decide what your life should look like. My job is to understand what it feels like to be you. I don’t think you’re broken. I don’t think people need fixing nearly as often as they’ve been led to believe. Most of the time, I think people are doing the very best they can with experiences that have shaped them in ways they may never have had the chance to understand. So rather than asking, ‘What’s wrong with you?’, I’ll probably be wondering, ‘How have you become the person you are?’
Across all of my work, one thing stays the same: I’m not interested in whether your life looks like mine, I’m interested in whether it feels like yours. My hope is that, by the time our work comes to an end, you’ll understand yourself more deeply, that you’ll notice your needs sooner, trust yourself more, find it easier to set boundaries, treat yourself with the same compassion you so freely offer other people. Not because I’ve taught you how to live, but because together we’ve created enough understanding that you can decide that for yourself. For me, that’s what therapy is, not becoming somebody different, but becoming more fully yourself.
As an integrative counsellor I use various therapeutic models depending what suits the situation (Click here for further information). I understand that starting this process can be quite daunting and I offer a 15-minute phone call prior to booking an initial session if you have any questions you would like to ask. I can also be contacted by email and text if you prefer.
I work face to face in Banbury, as well as Online/by phone, with individuals or relationships. If you’d like more information about the ways I work and the theories I use you can look here or to see a copy of my contract.
What are the benefits of counselling?
One of the quotes that has stayed with me throughout my own therapeutic journey is ‘When I accept myself just as I am, then I can change’ by Carl Rogers. For years I didn’t fully understand what that meant, then, through my own therapy, I began to. As I understood my history, the ways I’d been hurt, and the ways I’d adapted in response, I found compassion for myself. Instead of criticising who I was, I started understanding why I had become that person.
Something unexpected happened, change became easier. Not because I forced it, not because someone told me who I should become, but because acceptance created enough safety for growth. That’s the philosophy I bring into my work; I don’t believe people change through shame, pressure or being told what they ‘should’ do. I believe people change when they feel understood, when they understand themselves, when they begin trusting themselves.
Often, change arrives quietly. A boundary that once felt impossible becomes natural. A conversation that once felt terrifying becomes manageable. Self-compassion slowly replaces self-criticism. We look back together and realise just how much has shifted. Those moments bring me enormous joy, not because I made them happen, because you did. I simply had the privilege of walking alongside you while they unfolded.
