Of course! I will treat you as an individual and will certainly be aware of and respect everyone’s differences – for example, those related to age, sex, sexuality, disability, race and so on.

This will depend on you. Some types of counselling are often six to eight sessions. These include CBT or solution-focused therapy in Hythe, whereas psychodynamic counselling will tend to require more. This is something that we will discuss in our initial consultation and first session together. We will agree a set number of sessions with you which we’ll review as time goes on.

An individual counselling session will usually take 50 minutes.

This is something that we will decide together. it depends entirely on the individual and what you’re going through. People often see their counsellor once a week but this is flexible. For example, we may meet once a week, at first, and then decide together that you want to meet more or less frequently, depending on how you feel.

The first meeting is to get to know you a little better and for you to do the same with me. I look at your history and ask some questions to see how I can help you. This also gives you the opportunity to ask any questions you may have about counselling. I offer short Counselling or longer-term Psychotherapy and will review progress at short intervals, to ensure you get the best from each session. The length of the counselling depends entirely on you – whatever you need. It is important you feel comfortable.

For most people, talking to a friend means talking to someone who knows us well – they will tend to either agree with everything we say or criticise us. They may have their own issues that influence what they will say and, even worse, may talk about the whole thing to someone else. On the other hand, when you see a counsellor, everything you discuss will be in absolute confidence. With every session of therapy in Hythe, I abide by a code of ethics, which means that I’ll consider your safety and wellbeing at all times. I have both the training and the experience to make sure I am acting in your best interests.

Yes, it is important that you feel you can talk about things in complete confidence. I will not talk about you with others – the only time I may break this confidentiality is if, by not speaking to someone else, it could cause significant harm to you, me or another person – for example, if your life is at risk. We’ll discuss this when we first meet. Counsellors generally have a supervisor and it is very likely that they will talk to them about your case (without revealing your identity). This is to help the counsellor offer you the best possible service – a similar process to a doctor discussing your medical notes with a specialist.