Working with me
When you choose to work with me, you will most certainly receive the benefits of working with a fully qualified counsellor but it is more targeted and less general. What does that mean?
I have been working as a general counsellor, seeing people who have sought help for many different challenges – from depression and anxiety, to support for transitioning as a trans person to finding their way to an autism or adhd diagnosis and of course, grief. I enjoyed getting to know so many people and supporting them through their challenges.
What's different to counselling?
The main difference to a counsellor when working with me is that I am specializing in the grief space and end of life support. The work in these spaces can bear a few similarities to general counselling such as understanding where you are at as the client and what has brought you to work with me. Of course, everything in life is connected and no challenge or problem can ever be solved or managed successfully by looking at it in isolation.
I do focus on those connections and we will explore them together. This will mean we will go deeper than you might have originally expected and will uncover what has been waiting to be looked at. The day-to-day niggles can be addressed but the aim of my grief healing sessions is to peel the layers back and explore why you are feeling stuck, sad, depressed or struggling to find purpose.
With my background in trauma counselling, I am also interested to explore with you whether your current pain has ancient roots and stems from your past. To find what you are looking for, we will address the question ‘what is a good life?’ to understand what your values and wishes are and how you are currently aligning with them.
End of Life Support
If you like to work with me for end-of-life support, we are going to throw out the rule book a little bit. We will start from where you are at and manage any time constraints. We might get to spend quite some time together and can plan and create your last steps in detail. If time is becoming scarce, we will get practical and discuss and organise the most pressing things straight away. We will make the most of our time together and you decide what that looks like. This is not a time to compare, rush or please others. What is it that YOU want?
You might already know the answer or are not sure yet but are ready to explore to find your answer. This is what end of life support is about. It is such a personal and intimate journey and this needs to be honoured and respected at all times. As long as actions and decisions make sense to you then we are on a very good and fulfilling path.
This time is for you and about you. Maybe a few lose ends deserve to be tied up, maybe it is about recording anything you want to leave behind for your loved ones or maybe it is about savouring time. Whatever you are guided to do, it will be my honour to support you as long as needed. When I say we throw out the rule book a little then that also means, we are going to be flexible with time. We will always honour where you are at on the day.
In traditional counselling, there is often the 60-minute session and that makes a lot of sense in that setting. But when it comes to the last journey, time feels different and energy and capacity don’t follow expected trajectories necessarily. We work with what we have got and that is enough. We are not trying to fit a round peg in a square hole, we are aiming to use the time you have in a way that feels good and is meaningful to you. I look forward to finding out how we can make this happen together for you.