The Therapeutic Relationship

Growth

Jul 24

Written By Nicki Paull

Counselling is: holding a healing space to support and empower a person to find the best way forward

My counselling philosophy is based on these three things:

· Compassionate listening

· Holding a safe healing space

· Considered guidance and psycho-education of healing practices

You may prefer to discuss the value of counselling with your friends before you book a session. I am a counsellor, not a psychologist or psychiatrist.

We are the experts in our own lives. From time to time, we can become overwhelmed or even traumatised by the things that happen to us. My mission is to help people find their courage and confidence again, and get back behind the steering wheel of their lives.

My background outside counselling is in Mindful Self-Compassion, Vipassana Meditation (Mindfulness), Drama and Yoga. I am deeply committed to ethical behaviour. But my values, beliefs, biases and opinions are not important. I keep a value-neutral and judgement-free healing space to the best of my ability. I might interrupt you. But that will be because I have noticed, by your language or body language, that you are becoming re-traumatised by sharing your story. I have been there.

There are practical and ethical ways of approaching your trauma without telling the details of your story again. Sometimes, just feeling our feelings can be a challenge. We need to give ourselves permission and learn new skills just to come home to our own body, mind and spirit.

The therapeutic relationship is really important. If you have a session with me and feel like I don’t get it or you can’t trust me or communicate safely with me, it’s really important that you don’t feel obliged to keep ploughing on and give me the ‘benefit of the doubt’. You might need to shop around a bit before you find a therapist or counsellor you resonate with.

At the same time, building a comfortable and safe rapport takes time. A therapist or counsellor needs to earn your respect before you can trust them to guide you a bit out of your comfort zone. Feeling safe is perhaps the most important therapeutic aspect to finding the courage to lift yourself out of a hole.

Finally, I have walked through Hell and out the other side myself. I am willing to walk beside you while you do the same. But I don’t have all the answers. Sometimes we have to learn to live with, “I don’t know” as the answer to things for a while. Healing is not solely a rational process. Recovery takes time, patience, courage and self-compassion. I can’t give you any of those things, but I can help you find them inside yourself again.

My area of therapeutic specialty is working with female survivors of psychological and emotional abuse – in particular from partners who are extremely narcissistic or display signs of anti-social personality disorder (psychopaths and sociopaths). Such experiences often create sudden and far-reaching life consequences, such as divorce, homelessness, extreme financial hardship, and social and professional disruption and isolation. Such devastating trauma can be largely overlooked, or worse, blamed on the victim in our society.

I believe you.

I don’t blame you.

I know what trauma looks like.

I get it.