Helene Baker

When you commit to counselling therapy with me the following are possible:

• Greater self-awareness and insight. This adds to your information about ‘who’ you are and ‘how’ you arrived there and offers opportunities for making more conscious choices.
  
• Discovery of different perspectives on relationships and life experiences. Exploration in counselling creates an opportunity for insight and discovery.
  
• Increased intimacy with self and others. Offering you opportunities to choose more fulfilling relationships with partners, family andfriends.
  
• More understanding of your emotions. When your experiences are heard and understood, you can be more understanding of yourself and your emotions.
  
• Development of self-acceptance and self-appreciation. When you are listened to and accepted, without judgement, you become more able to understand and value yourself.
  

I offer warmth and a steady companionship and I am committed to prizing both our uniqueness and our common humanity.

I offer help with the setbacks and sufferings that are part of our human experience; a calm and reflective space and an attentive companion to help you look behind the obvious with openness and interest. This can help you discover your own truth and inner resources, and develop trust in your ability to meet future challenges.

You can contact me for a free telephone consultation: an opportunity to find out what’s on offer and whether it might help. Taking a step further, we can arrange an initial counselling appointment before committing to a longer working relationship,if required.

For specific issues, brief and focused therapy may be an option. For deeper, more complex exploration as well as for continued support and personal development some people choose ongoing sessions.

When you work with me in counselling supervision, you can expect:

Support in developing insight and competence with your client work

Space and encouragement to develop your internal monitor

Sustenance through all stages of client relationships

Space to describe and unfold your evolving theoretical model

Opportunities to explore your work with differing client needs

Space to safeguard integrity and creativity in your client work

My Approach

I believe that a healthy and supportive relationship between counsellor and supervisor is essential for safe, aware and creative client work. It is important to me, in working as a person-centred counselling supervisor, that the counsellor experiences:

Deep and sincere appreciation of their intention when working with a client. This includes valuing their personal meaning and sense of their own work.

Safety to express fears, doubts and difficult feelings arising from their client practice, to help with exploration of 'blindspots' and potentially harmful dynamics in relationships with clients. A relationship in which the counsellor can feel free to express experiences and their related emotions.

Openness, interest and creativity in the supervisory relationship for exploring thoughts and ideas. A space to wonder and experiment.

Questions, challenges and enquiries about their practice. A trust in the supervisor's committment to safeguard the ethics of the work.

Congruence in the perceptions and reactions of the supervisor. A relationship which can be experienced dynamically and through which the counsellor can develop trust and awareness.

I have been working therapeutically with adults and children - individuals, couples, and groups - for nearly 30 years. I studied at the Lincoln Institute for Psychotherapy and the University of London before setting up a private counselling practice. My interest in our human experience - what makes us who we are, and what goes on between us - goes back a long way.

As a counselling supervisor, I trained with Cascade Associates. I have worked as group supervisor with MIND and the City Lit and currently offer individual supervision to both trainee and experienced counsellors.

I have helped to set up counselling services in organisations working with substance use and 'mental health'. I have provided counselling support for clients in these organisations and emergency therapeutic support for staff.

As well as my private practice, I have worked as a Senior Counsellor for Caris Bereavement Service in Islington and have previously facilitated counsellor diploma and certificates at Renew Training/Anglia Ruskin University, City Lit and Lambeth College. I am a visiting lecturer for the BA(Hons) Counselling & Psychotherapy at Renew.

As an Accredited Member of the National Counselling Society (NCS), I work in accordance with their guidelines for ethics and good practice. I am a registrant of their Accredited Voluntary Register. I am a registered member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and a member of the The Person-Centred Association (TPCA).

I have just completed an MA in Trauma Studies at the University of Nottingham