People sometimes contact me unsure whether they're looking for counselling, supervision or coaching. While there is overlap between them, they have different purposes and focus on different kinds of change.

Counselling

Counselling is an emotionally focused, insight-oriented process. It's time that is entirely for you.

The changes you make in counselling may benefit the people around you, but the focus remains on helping you understand yourself more deeply and align your actions with your values.

Together we'll explore how things came to be as they are, drawing on your unique experiences, relationships and circumstances. I listen without judgement and offer reflection, curiosity and, when helpful, challenge, informed by years of psychological theory and practice.

Counselling can be either short or long term. Many people are surprised to learn that relatively brief therapy can be highly effective, particularly when there is a clear focus for the work. Others prefer a longer-term space for exploration and personal growth.

People often come to counselling because they are experiencing emotional distress, navigating a life change, feeling stuck, or simply sensing that something isn't quite right.

Supervision

Supervision is a service user-focused, reflective practice. You do it for the people you work with, but it benefits you too.

The purpose of supervision is to support safe, effective and thoughtful practice. It creates space to reflect on your work, make sense of complex situations, and continue developing throughout your career.

Unlike counselling, supervision is usually a long-term professional relationship, built through many conversations about your work, its impact on the people you support, your organisation and yourself.

If you enjoyed reflective practice during your training, not just thinking about what you were doing but why you were doing it and how, you'll probably enjoy supervision. If reflective writing was the part you tolerated rather than enjoyed, supervision may feel more challenging, but it can be just as important.

Many helping professionals spend their days producing clear notes, following procedures and justifying decisions. Supervision provides somewhere different. It is a place to bring uncertainty, frustration, creativity, strong feelings and half-formed thoughts. A place to think out loud.

Together, we'll work out what's happening between people. What's yours, what's theirs, and what belongs to the work itself.

I also believe that good supervision requires more than simply accumulating years of experience. Some of the most useful insights come from working across professions and from questions that challenge our assumptions. Sometimes the most helpful question is the one that seems obvious. We all benefit from occasionally stepping outside our professional silos.

Coaching

Coaching is a goal-focused, action-oriented process.

Where counselling is often concerned with understanding and supervision with reflection, coaching is primarily concerned with movement and change.

If you have a specific objective in mind, such as changing career, developing leadership skills, improving confidence at work or making an important decision, coaching helps you identify practical steps towards that goal.

Coaching builds on your strengths and resources. Together we'll focus on what you want to achieve, identify what might be getting in the way, and develop realistic actions that help you move forward.