Counselling

Yew Tree Clinic offers a calm environment for counselling; away from the busy city centre of Bristol but with easy access from all areas of the city.

What is counselling and how can it help?

There are times when we can feel overwhelmed with life’s difficulties. Counselling can offer us a place to talk with someone outside of our circle of family, friends and colleagues, in a private and confidential setting. When it seems life is a maze, counselling offers the opportunity to reflect on and explore our problems; it finds a pathway through the maze, achieving clarity and leading to a better life satisfaction.

Counsellors are trained to listen to you, to empathise and understand your life experiences as you see them. A counsellor will respond honestly to the issues you bring, without judging you. The relationship with your counsellor is based on a development of mutual trust, which enables you to feel safe enough to explore what can often be difficult issues.

Your counsellor will not tell you what to do or make decisions for you. Instead they will act as a ‘sounding board’, helping you to gain a clearer picture of your situation. They will offer you support so that you can decide on the changes you want to make.

Solution Focused Brief Counselling

Counselling provides an opportunity to talk in confidence, to someone who has the skills and experience to reflect and listen to what is being said without judging or advising. It will enable the process of empowerment to happen, and allow a route forward, so the appropriate changes can take place.

Counselling enables you to:

Explore difficulties, reflect upon your life experiences, emotions past and present and develop new choices.

• Discover a new awareness of yourself.
• Develop new positive coping strategies.
• Create changes in your life

Cognitive Behavioural therapy (CBT)

CBT is a brief therapy for many disorders, anxiety, depression, panic, stress management, self-harm, relationship issues, insomnia and many other problems.

It utilizes an adaptable approach in changing maladaptive or rigid ways of thinking and feeling. It is not the events themselves, simply the meaning a person gives them. Negative / anxious thought patterns that develop over time, become a belief system and fail to change. By identifying these negative or distorted perceptions, the therapist can evaluate and change the way the client is thinking and ultimately feeling.

Because this therapy is pertaining to the client’s individual needs and focuses on their negative / anxious thought patterns and processes, they will learn to become more flexible and are able to accept and adapt new cognitive skills. CBT therefore encourages better coping skills and strategies.

Feedback at the beginning of each session is vital, such as what has worked and what has not. The emphasis is on collaborating and to experiment and explore different ways for the individual client to overcome their difficulties.

Counselling can be a challenging and a painful process and it is important to feel safe and not judged in the counselling sessions. Therefore, it is important clients work at their own pace to reach the changes they want to make for the future.