Offering a safe place

The challenge of being young

Being a young person in the 21st century is a pretty challenging task. There is a mass of learning to do and multi-sensory stimuli coming at you from all directions to help or hinder your progress. It’s not surprising that children struggle from time to time. Very often, parents, carers and other supportive adults can and do help. But having a safe and private space to explore what is going on for can also help. I love working with children and young people and have trained to work specifically with young people as part of my professional therapeutic work.

The evolving minds and growing bodies of young people inside the academic hot house of schools with their focus on comparing and excelling, is a huge lot of stuff going on! But young people don’t always find it easy to express what they are feeling about this or anything else. Emotions can build up and become overwhelming, coming out in all sorts of ways which can affect their own mental and emotional wellbeing as well as external factors like relationships, education and interests outside school.

Alongside this, the many ups and downs of life can happen such as parents splitting up, bereavement, problems with peers, moving house, caring for ill or disabled relatives, sibling rivalries and many others.

Feelings of anger, upset and anxiety as well as low self-esteem, lack of confidence and disrupted sleep are all possible manifestations from and around the complex journey of growing up and becoming adults. More serious, children can cut off from school and try to manage their feelings through self harm or find themselves in despair and consider suicide.

I try to meet each child or young person where they are at emotionally and am very much child-led. Children often express themselves though play and offering games, activities and creative materials is both a distraction and a focus so that they can work through their problems without realising they are doing do. I also work more directly with some children – exploring through stories, worksheets and talking around issues in their lives as appropriate for their age and emotional maturity level.

I draw on many strands of my training to work with young people – humanistic counselling to enhance autonomy and agency, play therapy for fun, exploration and expression, CBT for structured tools and techniques and focus on the connections of thoughts, feelings, body sensations and actions and knowledge of attachment theory in psychodynamic theory.

I work with children aged 5 and above, all through the development years up to and into adulthood and offer both in person and online sessions of 45-50 minutes for this age group. Please contact me for an initial no obligation introductory call to discuss your child’s needs.

Under 18s

O3

Feedback from children and parents

'I feel more comfortable and confident going to secondary school. I have new ways in which to deal with my anxiety and I feel much more at ease now.'

'Thanks so much for the last few weeks with my son I’ve noticed a big difference in how he is dealing with his emotions and he’s so positive about starting secondary school.'

'R seems to be in a much better place of late and we really are very proud of him! Thanks also for all your guidance and support which has been very valuable. We certainly know where you are should he wish to revisit in the future!'

'Thank you so much for your work with R. He has really become a much happier child. '

'I wish I had had someone to help me navigate the complexities of being a young person when growing up. I am thrilled to have become that someone for other young people'