Affirmative Counselling

I aim to create a space that allows your true nature to flourish and be seen and heard. To do this, I am pro-actively creating an affirmative counselling experience for people who may have been marginalised, experienced discrimination or feel they have to hide aspects of their experience or identity. These experiences influence how comfortable or even how safe we feel in the world and in our relationships. These can take the form of bullying, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ageism, ableism and more...

For some individuals, there may be more than one aspect of their identity or experience that feels repressed, shameful or marginalised. You may have had experiences, such as these, ignored, invalidated or even made to feel as though these were problematic/"not normal." This may have happened during counselling. These kinds of encounters can create distress on a daily basis, and influence our mental health and wellbeing in the long term. They can also limit our access to affirmative - or validating and accepting - health services or healing spaces.

As a neurodivergent queer counsellor and practitioner, with my own experiences of marginalisation, it is my intention to create an affirmative and accessible relationship with my clients. I welcome sometimes challenging conversations about what is important to you to feel comfortable during counselling. If I have poor knowledge of an aspect of your experience, I will try to fill this gap and do my research. If for any reason you decide I am not a good fit for you, I encourage your honesty. I will offer to help you find a therapist or practitioner who may be more appropriate for you needs.

I also follow the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy's (BACP) ethical code of conduct and am a registered member with them. Please see the about me page for my registration details and more about how I work.

Accessibility:

Please let me know if you have any access needs or other requirements to help you engage comfortably with counselling, such as:

• Physical access to venues or sensory needs remotely/in-person

• Adjustments to a room/space

• Length of sessions can be negotiated for sensory requirements / capacity levels

• If curious to try outdoors or nature-based counselling we can discuss access and location preferences or ways of including nature

• Sliding-scale concessionary pricing - I have some allocations for those with low income or experiencing financial difficulties