top of page
hand touching water

Person-Centered Counselling

Tackling the 'stuff' that prevents us from living life to the full.

I offer Person-Centered Counselling, which means that I place a high value on getting to know you and drawing from a range of approaches to suit your individual needs and personal situation.

At the core of the counselling therapy I offer is an approach that gives you time, is secure, confidential and non-judgemental. The counselling terms used are ‘Person-Centred’ and ‘Integrative’ – which means that I place a high value on the quality of relationship built with each individual client and draw from a range of approaches to suit each client.

As a counsellor, I offer a safe and compassionate space for you to express and explore your unique experiences and relationships of life. These can be current or recent but may also be from many years ago – if it still impacts your life today, it matters.

As you experience being heard with empathy, patience, dignity and sensitivity you are able to view things more clearly and make choices about the way in which you view yourself, and how you respond to the people around you or the circumstances you face.

Life issues to explore

The issues and aspects of life which you may wish to explore in the context of counselling include:

  • Relationship issues – with partners, parents, siblings, children, friends

  • Family Life – family breakdown, divorce, separation, conflict, special needs such as Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, family transition points

  • Bereavement – including miscarriage

  • Personal issues – self-esteem, sadness, anxiety, stress, panic, anger, depression

  • Times of change – career changes, choices, unemployment, redundancy

  • Chronic health – cancer, dealing with terminal illness, being a carer, life-style issues

Supervision

I have an Advanced Diploma in Relational Supervision (NCS Level 7) and offer warm, friendly and professional Person-Centred / Integrative Counselling Supervision for counsellors. Supervision is available 'face-to-face' or via Zoom.

My own brilliant Supervisors have instilled in me a passion for supporting others in a way that is collaborative and empowering, and fundamentally beneficial to clients.

The BACP code of conduct stipulates that every practitioner should have a minimum of one and a half hours of supervision per month, but recognises that this can vary by workload and experience. The higher your workload, the more stressful your work, the more supervision you’re likely to need.

My approach to supervision has four main aims:
  • Providing you with support for the often difficult emotional issues you will be working with – an opportunity to ‘offload’

  • Helping you to reflect on your work as a professional – enabling you to learn from your experiences safely, ethically and effectively

  • Supporting Supervisees towards accreditation with professional bodies in the UK

  • Enabling accountability through the mutual monitoring of your practice– by preparing for our sessions you will be recording, analysing, and managing your work.

Supervision Sessions

Time: 90 minutes per month
Cost: £90 per session

High Five
Supervision
Waves

Who Can Benefit?

I work with women, men and young adults (18+) from many walks of life facing issues including depression, bereavement, relationship pressures, career and self-image challenges.

In private practice I work with many clients and seek to enable them to move forward on a variety of challenging life issues. Every day I am privileged to meet amazing people and see them move forward to becoming more of the person they want to be.

Here are some of the challenges that people bring for counselling:

Women

  • Depression, anxiety, weight-gain, bereavement, baby loss and childlessness, gender, career issues, loneliness, eating disorders, self-harm, Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, exploring spirituality.

Men

  • Loneliness, boredom, career potential, relationship problems, baby loss and childlessness, gender, bereavement, loss, Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, addictions, exploring spirituality.

Young adults

The young adults I work with face a variety of issues including:

  • Self-image, eating disorders, self-harm, family and relationship issues, bereavement and Autism.

Are you considering counselling?

You may find my ‘Getting Started‘ helpful >

You matter graphic

Getting Started

You Matter

If you’ve never been to counselling before, you may wonder what it’s all about. I hope that my answers to frequently asked questions will help.

What is counselling therapy?

Your therapy is for you – you’re the greatest expert on ‘you’. I’m here to help by providing a caring and supporting environment, together with the time and space you need, to talk through concerns and issues in a way that leads to a greater self-awareness and the clarity you need to move forward in making your own choices.

I’m not here to give you advice or tell you what to do; I won’t try to ‘fix’ you. Although I may challenge your preconceptions, you’re still best placed to know what will and won’t fit with who you are and the life you lead.

How much will I have to disclose?

Some people worry that they will have to go into every detail of their life, their background and family history. To be honest, it’s difficult to know what we will end-up touching on, but it is likely that we will touch on many of these aspects. However, please be assured that you will always be in control of what you choose to disclose and the rate at which you choose to disclose it.

What’s an introductory session?

This allows you to meet me without committing to following-up. In the first session we will cover Confidentiality, Boundaries, Your hopes, Aims, Goals for counselling.

I’ll also ask you to give me your medical history and current medication. While it’s helpful for me to know it, this isn’t compulsory.

At the end of the introductory session, an approach to working together will be discussed with a suggested number of sessions and an agreed aim. From there it’s up to you whether or not you’re ready to proceed.

How long does each session last?

Sessions last for one hour. They are typically once per week, keeping the same time and day each week. However, sometimes people’s situations or working patterns make this difficult, in which case a different more flexible schedule can be determined.

How long does counselling go on?

Effective work can be done in as few as 6 sessions. However, some issues may take longer and in this case we may decide upon a phased approach with regular reviews at the end of each phase.

Whatever the situation, we will discuss and agree upon the approach that’s appropriate to you in our first meeting. It’s completely open and transparent, and you won’t be forced into any long-term commitment.

Safeguards and supervision

Confidentiality underpins every counselling relationship. I take your confidentiality very seriously.

However, I need to be explicit about the exceptions to confidentiality – if you disclose you are involved with a terrorist act, that you are about to harm yourself or somebody else, or if you disclose any current child abuse (whether you’re involved with it or not), then I have a legal and ethical duty to report this to the relevant authority. If I feel that this is the case, I will wherever possible discuss this with you first.

In line with the BACP ethical framework, please be aware that I have a supervisor who supports me to ensure that I’m working to the best of my ability and that nothing significant is being missed.

Are you ready to get started?

If you’d like to meet me before going further with the counselling, why not get in touch to arrange a no-strings attached Introductory Session – simply email me at info.shelleygabb@gmail.com

How do I know I'm Ready for Counselling?

Thankfully, today we live in a world where counselling has shed the stigma of something that’s only for people who are crazy, desperate, or on the brink of a meltdown.

While counselling therapy isn’t necessary for every life struggle, it’s all too easy to believe that the issues we face are just not ‘extreme enough’ to need counselling, that somehow the things we are wrestling with don’t matter.

The thing is, if the issues you’re struggling with are impacting your life today, and likely to inhibit your future happiness, prospects, relationships, or wellbeing – then they do matter.

So how do you know when it’s time to seek some counselling?
Here are six signs that might help you recognise the time is ‘now’.

1: You’re “not yourself”.

If you’re eating or sleeping more or less than usual, withdrawing from family and friends, you’ve stopped doing activities that you normally enjoy, finding it hard to laugh these days, or dealing with long periods of intense sadness, anger, or anxiety – then it’s time to talk to someone before it escalates. Counsellors are trained to help you to identify the reasons behind these feelings that can overwhelm and debilitate, and to facilitate you in finding your own way through them.

2: Your emotions are increasingly disproportionate to what is actually going on.

What you’re looking for here is behaviour that’s not normal for you – so do you find yourself flying off-the-handle more than you used to? Or bursting into tears at the slightest provocation? When an emotional response does not match what has triggered it, it’s often because longstanding suppressed emotions are fighting to come to the surface. A Counsellor can help you to unpack and finally deal with them.

3: You suspect your relationships could be better than they are.

One of the main ways underlying issues surface is through our relationships. You may be struggling to connect to your partner, children, and parents, or finding it difficult to maintain a romantic relationship, a friendship, or to deal with colleagues at work. Counselling can help you to identify and change the things that are blocking intimacy or preventing happiness in a relationship.

4: There’s a past or present trauma:
- bereavement, personal or family health issues including mental health problems,
marital or relationship breakdown, violence, redundancy…

When we are living through some sort of traumatic event, it can be easy to believe we need to suck-it-up, and afterwards to think we’re through it. However, weeks, months, or years later we can find that our lives are still impacted. Maybe you’re tired of being strong all the time. There is no shame in needing a little expert help to get through the loss of a loved one, a significant breakup, or the loss of a job. A Counsellor can also give you healthy ways to cope with past or present traumas.

5: Your self-esteem is about as low as it can be.

In a world that increasingly dictates what we should do, who we should be, and what we need to look like, it can be a real challenge to maintain self-esteem. Feeling misunderstood, not listened to, that you’ve lost-out, and that you’re not being ‘authentically you’, can lead to alienation and loneliness. Counsellors are trained to get to know you, and help identify what is stopping you from feeling good about yourself. Together we can find new ways to grow your self-worth.

6: You can’t seem to stop making choices that are damaging

It’s common to turn to ‘things’ that make us feel better, but they can have a damaging effect longer-term. Is it time to admit to an unhealthy relationship with food, alcohol, drugs, substance abuse? Maybe you’re constantly overspending, choosing destructive romantic relationships, or physically self-harming? It can be hard to control this behaviour until you understand what’s triggering it.

Any of these sound familiar to you?

If so, take a read of my ‘Getting Started‘ page which will help you understand the support you get from my person-centred counselling approach.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram

Practicalities

Where sessions take place

Counselling and Supervision:

Individual counselling and Supervision is offered in person from my home therapy room in Bristol (BS36). Sessions are also available via Zoom or telephone and it is possible to use a combination to suit your schedule.

To book your appointment call: 07783 994123

or email: info.shelleygabb@gmail.com

bottom of page