“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards” – Soren Klerkegaard
About us
We are a group of committed, professionally qualified counsellors operating as a registered charity. We provide a low-cost high-quality service to all of our clients for either in-person sessions or on-line who may not be able to access counselling due to cost. We are very proud to be able to offer this service to anyone who can access our service in East London. For those who cannot access our service due to location, please refer to the Counselling Directory for details of independent counsellors and other counselling services up and down the country.
We are in the fortunate position to be able to offer short-term or long term counselling and in some cases where helpful opened ended counselling. Our service is open to individuals who are referred from GPs and other agencies. We also welcome people who want to contact us directly themselves.
For those who seek Couples Counselling we would advise you search for local resources in the Counselling Directory as we are unable to offer this through our service.
As we have in excess of 18 counsellors on our team, our waiting list is often shorter than with other services. We aim to find you a suitable counsellor within a short period of your contacting us, after an initial consultation to assess your needs.
All our counsellors have been trained or are in on-going training with officially recognised training organisations. We are a not for profit organisation and all of our counsellors offer their service as volunteers. As we are an organisational member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, we all receive regular supervision and are bound by the BACP Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy.
If you experience any difficulty with the service we provide, you can discuss this with your counsellor or with the service manager
What services are offered?
Counselling can support us in some very specific areas, for example:
bereavement or loss
anger
marriage break-up
family turmoil
abuse/ domestic violence
help in dealing with stress – conflict at work, problems at home, pressures of everyday living
feelings of loneliness or isolation
depression
anxiety and panic attacks
relationship difficulties
childhood trauma
confusion or forgetfulness
low self-esteem
sexual identity and stress
addictions
victims of sexual abuse
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you” – Maya Angelou
Posts
“…the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
Carl Jung
FAQs
Counselling is a ‘talking therapy’, or in other words a conversation between a counsellor and a client. You and your counsellor will meet face to face, usually once a week, for 50 minutes, to work through issues which are causing you concern. We are in the fortunate position to be able to offer short-term and open-ended counselling to meet your needs.
There are times in our lives when there seems to be no way to overcome distressing events of overwhelming feelings – when our lives have become difficult or even intolerable. At such times of intense anxiety we are liable to make hasty decisions which we later regret, or accept advice from others with which we may not be in wholehearted agreement, and then have to live with the consequences. Counselling aims to help people clarify their own thoughts and reach their own decisions, and perhaps to make major life changes in their life.
Counselling is different from other kinds of help in that no attempt is made to tell you what to do. Essentially, the counsellor’s task is to bring a skilled/rained listening ear to you and your problems in order to help you to discover more about yourself – your strengths and weaknesses, values beliefs and priorities – so that you can find your own solutions and carry out your own resolutions. It is a rewarding personal experience between people, and requires commitment of time and effort on both sides.
At times Counselling can be challenging, since it often involves talking about things we would prefer to push out of our minds in everyday life. Although challenging, it can also be a tremendous relief to air our half-buried ideas and feelings.
Because a counselling relationship is totally confidential, you can entrust a trained and experienced counsellor with thoughts or feelings which might be considered unacceptable or even silly in everyday life. Ideas, thoughts or feelings of which other people, or even a part of ourselves disapprove, can be aired and explored in the safety of the counselling room. If we are willing to take such a risk, counselling rewards us with a deeper understanding of ourselves and enriches our lives with more meaning.
Whatever your situation, whether you are worried, depressed, confused, feeling bad about yourself, coping with an unexpected change or crisis, or simply wanting to make some changes in your life, it is helpful to talk things over with an understanding and well-trained “outsider”
The first meeting with a counsellor is used to discuss whether continued counselling will meet your needs. It is important to give the counsellor an honest account of your situation, and also to be prepared to ask questions so that you can be sure that counselling is what you want, and that the counsellor is a person that you can work with comfortably.
The counselling service rates are responsive to your ability to pay and we will endeavour to provide rates which are affordable to you, if you are not in paid employment. Currently our rates range from £25 down to our minimum charge of £15.00 per session.
The time with your counsellor is confidential and information will not be passed to anyone without your consent. All of our counsellors work within the Ethical Framework of the British Assocation for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). Among other things, this ensures that the counselling process is confidential. Copies of the Ethical Framework are available on request. We operate a Data Protection Policy in line with current (2018) regulations. which can be downloaded at the bottom of the page.
We actively oppose oppression and discrimination against people because of their gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, disabilities, sexual orientation, age, religious beliefs, class, HIV status, or because they have been in contact with mental health services.
Counselling Placements
We offer counselling placements to counselling students approaching their final year of training, or for qualified counsellors working towards accreditation with a professional body. We welcome applications from those trained in either the person-centred or integrative framework.
The number of applications we receive exceeds the number of placements that we are able to offer. Our criteria for considering you as a suitable candidate requires that
- you are well established in one-to-one counselling before applying for a placement (we will require evidence of at least 20 sessions).). We cannot consider group therapy of any kind as part of these hours;
- if you are a counselling student (as opposed to a qualified counsellor working towards accreditation) that you also agree to undertake continuous counselling for the duration of your placement;
- you are a counselling student approaching your final year on a two year diploma course or the second year of a counselling degree course; or
- you are a qualified counsellor wishing to work towards accreditation with one of the professional bodies;
If you satisfy the above criteria then please download a copy of the application form and the reference request from the button below. Please complete this application form and pass your reference request to a suitable referee for onward transmission to us then send your completed application form by post or e-mail (contact e-mails on the application form).
If your application is successful we will require you to present us with an up to date Enhanced DBS document. If you do not have one of these we can arrange for one to be carried out for you before your placement begins.
Please click on the links below to open the relevant files which can be saved as PDF’s onto your own computer.
“The curious things is that when I accept myself just I am, I can change”
Carl Rogers
Get in touch with us
To arrange to talk to a counsellor, please call 07547 893 700. For general enquiries regarding placements etc you can e-mail us by clicking on this link All appointments now take place either online or in East Ham.
Our East Ham service is based in St Bart’s Community Centre at 292b Barking Road, East Ham, London E6 3BA. This is accessible via a number of bus routes and is a 10 minute walk from East Ham District Line Station.
WE ARE A NON-RELIGIOUS ORGANISATION AND . WE WELCOME PEOPLE FROM ALL FAITH AND NON-FAITH BACKGROUNDS WHO WISH TO ACCESS COUNSELLING.
