THE UPWARD SPIRAL
COUNSELLING, COACHING & CONSULTANCY IN Exeter and Teignmouth
ABOUT ME
I’ve spent much of my career in learning and organisational development, working in Local Authority and Health Care settings. A common thread throughout my work has been helping individuals and teams take their first steps toward positive change, whether through Learning and Development, group facilitation, employee engagement, or team development activities. I have also led Workforce Health and Wellbeing initiatives, including during the Covid pandemic. This work included designing and delivering workplace mindfulness programs and stress and resilience training.
Since qualifying as a coach in 2012, I’ve worked with a diverse range of clients from Apprentices to Senior Management, helping them build confidence, develop skills, and achieve meaningful goals. My experience in coaching showed me the tangible impact of supporting people and got me thinking about how I could make a more personal difference.
I began my counselling studies in 2018 at the Iron Mill College in Exeter. Partway through, I experienced burnout—a culmination of many years of knowing deep down that I needed to make a change. While it was a difficult time, it became the turning point that convinced me to focus on what truly mattered to me: helping people on a one-to-one level.
I then gained invaluable experience as a trainee at the Margaret Jackson Centre in Exeter between 2019 and 2022. Whilst there, I worked with clients on issues such as anxiety, depression, low self esteem, childhood abuse, agoraphobia, anger management, and relationship difficulties.
Transitioning into full-time counselling has been both challenging and deeply rewarding, and I feel privileged to support others as they take their first steps toward positive change. For more information about my approach, my thoughts about counselling and some useful resources, please take a look at my blogs.
Continuing Professional Development
MY APPROACH
I'm an integrative counsellor, which means I draw on a broad range of therapeutic approaches such as humanistic, mindfulness based cognitive therapy, Transactional Analysis, Existentialism and contemporary attachment theory.
Here is the framework that I use, which will be tailored to suit your specific needs:
Exploration and connection
- Starting our therapeutic journey by getting to know each other and understanding the reasons you're here.
- Creating the conditions for you to feel safe, build trust and develop a strong therapeutic relationship.
- Exploring your personal history and experiences that have shaped you.
Addressing immediate challenges
- Focus on managing specific issues such as panic attacks, anger, or insomnia together.
- Where appropriate, offer practical insights to help you understand and navigate these difficulties.
Deepening understanding and empowering change
- Explore what is under the surface that is troubling you, for example, increasing awareness of patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that may have served you well in the past, but are now problematic.
- Uncover personal values to guide decision-making and collaboratively identify achievable changes in line with those values.
- As therapy comes to an end, reflect on your progress, what are you taking away from our work together that can support your ongoing personal growth.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Counselling is usually a good way to help with a current problem; something that can be discussed and - hopefully - resolved within a limited number of sessions. Over a certain number of weeks the understanding of the problem improves and away forward becomes clear. Therapy often describes work that goes a bit deeper, towards more substantial life issues and problems having a deeper effect on the client’s life. Therapy often requires a long-term approach, so the number of sessions can be open-ended.
Which option is most suitable depends on the client and the difficulties they are facing. In some cases counselling works well as an ongoing, longer-term option - or therapy can manage to resolve an issue in just a few sessions.
How long a period of counselling lasts will vary from person to person and depend on the depth of the issues they are facing. For some people a couple of sessions helps to bring their problems into focus, and they feel ready to move forward; other problems may require more of an open-ended approach.
Before we begin any work we will agree on the number of sessions we’ll undertake before having a session to review our progress. As long as we both agree further therapy will be of benefit to you, sessions can continue.
My aim is to offer a first appointment within 1-2 weeks. Then we would arrange a set number of counselling sessions to take place at the same time every week, that is convenient for you and where I have availability. How quickly these sessions can begin will depend on the availability of that free ‘slot’.
Everything that is said within the counselling room is private - this is one of the main ways counselling and therapy differ from talking to a friend or relative. Once you are comfortable with the format of weekly sessions and the safe space they provide, you will find the freedom to speak in confidence is of great value.
Note that there are some situations where you may be a risk to yourself or others, and there the law requires that I notify an authority; in these cases I may not be able to keep total confidentiality. Breaking confidentiality is very rare though, and only happens after the person concerned has been informed.
Usually I am asked this question by people who are nervous about entering into counselling, or when they are looking for support in coming to see a therapist. This anxiety is understandable, but a key aspect of therapy is that you should feel free to talk about any issues you feel are important to you. Having someone else with you who can be connected those issues makes this opening-up more difficult, so for this reason I do not see clients accompanied by friends or family.