Online Counselling
My aim with any counselling relationship is to create a safe space and a genuine, warm and accepting relationship and this is just the same with an online relationship. I believe that within this kind of relationship there is the potential to allow you the freedom to make choices that are right for you.
What is Online Counselling?
Online counselling provides an opportunity to explore a personal difficulty in a confidential and supportive environment. Online counselling gives you the opportunity to access counselling support at a time and in a place, which is convenient to you.
Online counselling is different from face-to-face work and misunderstandings can happen sometimes because we don’t have things like facial expressions and tone of voice to guide us. It’s therefore really helpful if you ask me to clarify anything that you feel unsure about or if you feel that I have misunderstood you in any way.
There might also be times when I ask questions about what you have written to me. This may be to get a clearer understanding of your difficulty or to clarify a misunderstanding in our communication. Please feel free to ignore my questions and responses, or alternatively spend time between email exchanges reflecting on them; I will be led by you.
How would it work?
We would agree an “appointment time” and this would be a time when you will receive my email reply, or the time agreed to meet in real time using software such as Skype. Our Skype sessions could be weekly or more frequently if you request this. As I will need some time to read your previous email, I will need you to send in your email at least 48 hours before I send you my reply.
If you have already paid for a session but are not able to meet at the time, we agreed I will retain the fee for the session unless we have experienced a technological breakdown which stop us from meeting online or exchanging emails. If this happens, we’ll discuss how to re-arrange the scheduled appointment.
What sort of issues can I contact you about?
Online counselling might be helpful for a number of issues including, abuse, anxiety, stress, depression, loneliness, relationship problems, bereavement, self-esteem and many more.
Not all types of issues can be resolved through online counselling and I would let you know if face to face counselling, or another form of support/counselling would be more suitable for you. If this were the case, I’ll make every effort to help you find a suitable alternative source of support and we can discuss how you might access that support.
I’m not able to provide online counselling to anyone under 18 years of age. If this applies to you I can help with information on referral to other agencies who provide face to face counselling or who do online work which is specifically for younger people.
So what's the first step?
I will always offer a first meeting to help us discuss whether you want to start counselling with me and whether I am the best person to help you or whether another person would be better suited to you. We’ll discuss how counselling might help you and the issues which you want to begin to talk about so that we can agree, between us, on a way of working, bearing in mind my person-centred approach and the reasons that might bring you to counselling.
Everything we discuss is completely confidential with total respect for your privacy and that of any other individuals discussed.