Irene Pugh Counselling

About Counselling

Counselling is an opportunity for you to explore yourself - your thoughts and feelings, what pleases you and what upsets you. It is a safe environment because I work to a strict ethical framework and am outside your everyday life. It is helpful to have an empathic listener who is fully focused on understanding what is troubling you.

There are different types of counselling. I work in a way that combines several approaches - person centred, psychodynamic and psychosynthesis. For me this means working alongside the client in a respectful, accepting way, while holding in mind what together we might learn from earlier events in your life and also having an eye to the decisions for change which you, the client, may choose to make.

It is an holistic approach, acknowledging the importance of body, mind and feelings.


What Conditions Can it Help?

Counselling cannot change external circumstances like the fact that someone has died, but it does support you as you work through difficult experiences. It helps you to think about what can be changed; to work out how that change can happen; or to think about why, perhaps, you might be choosing at a particular time not to make a change that in some ways seems desirable.

It is possible to list all the troubles that counselling can help with (anxiety, depression and so on), but it is perhaps more helpful to say that counselling helps wherever someone wants to know themselves better, cope better with what is going on and become more accepting of themselves.


What Benefits can be Expected?

People generally feel lighter, even after one session. There is a relief that you do not need to try to continue all by yourself. There can be someone else who understands, who will stand by you, who does not judge you and who enables you to work through what is very often a jumble of feelings and thoughts.

People begin to have more confidence, confidence that comes from believing more in themselves and finding that with some support and help, they are much more in charge both of their emotions and their circumstances than they had previously felt. So issues that seemed unresolvable somehow become less problematic.


Personal Approach:

My approach is to start by helping to put you at ease and then find out what you want from our meeting. I bring no preconceptions to the counselling session since each individual is different. Through my compassionate interest in all that you say and by careful attention to the detail of what you present, I can help you to focus on what your main concerns are.

My view is that you, the client, knows best what is right for you. This warm and attentive listening is experienced by the client as both healing and facilitative so that you are likely to feel increasingly comfortable in exploring your thoughts and feelings.

Once we have established a sound working relationship, we are able to look at the issues, consider how you are troubled in the present, how the past might have contributed to that and marshall the resources available to you to manage your situation.

I believe that I can give you the support you need to make the journey you choose.