Victoria Telfer-Smith

I do not work after school hours.

I work on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

I work in person and face to face.

I have been qualified as a counsellor since 2000; I specialize in anxiety, panic, shame, depression and trauma. 

We will meet in my comfortable counselling room in my private practice in Loughborough. This is a safe place for reflection and exploration; I have created a place for you to feel confident to work in confidentiality. I will be non judgmental, offer support and guidance, provide knowledge and psycho education and info graphics.

We have to free ourselves to be ourselves. Living an authentic life and being our authentic self.

I work with Abuse and Trauma; childhood, sexual and violence. I can provide strategies to cope and heal what you have suffered. The effects of trauma can be life long and debilitating. Often drugs, self harm, alcohol are used to ease the pain and suffering. I suggest you may not go back to how you were before the trauma, but when you can manage your reactions, you can do anything you want to.

It may be hard to make the first move for therapy, but you have looked at my profile and the next step is easy; you have already achieved a goal. Have a look at my website for details and more information about the issues I can work with.

I am a graduate in Human Communication and have completed a Counselling Certificate and Diploma.

I offer specialist knowledge in Fertility, Post Natal Depression and Hypnobirthing.

I have studied shame and how it effects humans, and how it affects trauma survivors. It is something we do not want to talk about because it hurts. Guilt also comes up and the two can be confused. Guilt tells us we have done something wrong which we can correct, however shame tells us we are a wrong person which we cannot correct.

I work with shame and have strategies to survive it.

I practice Humanistic therapy, also known as person centered. I am also influenced by other theories; namely, CBT, TA, mindfulness and meditation.

You may have heard of CBT, the NHS use it frequently, so do I. It is a well proven method to change behaviours that are no longer useful or that actually harm us. I use Person Centered therapy to get to the point of identifying what these behaviours are and what historic issues may have been the cause. Most behaviours we want to change are maladaptive and a result of dealing with situations we have found difficult, through no fault of our own.

Person Centered therapy is a technique using Empathy, Unconditional Positive Regard (upr) and Congruence.

I also use reflection, especially with a focus on the reality that you are living. This is useful because we often have negative thoughts, the brains default, and for a variety of reasons, we believe them. They are, more often, not true.

I treat the mind and body in my practice. I may ask you questions about your sleep, diet, exercise and general health. I will not be intrusive and if I sense you do not wish to discuss these, I will not ask. However, they can be very important when dealing with anxiety, panic attacks and depression.

After you have made contact via email or telephone call, we will find a suitable time to meet. I will send a copy of my contract for you to read and sign. This is usual practice for therapists, if you have any questions you are free to email, call or chat in the first session.

When we meet I will ask you to talk about yourself, this can be difficult for some people, so I may ask questions to help you along. They may seem intruding, but everything is confidential and I am gathering information to guide the sessions and my therapy.

Most people find that in the first session they can talk quite freely, some even find one session is enough. Although mostly people need more time to talk about their story and what it involves. Sometimes this may be the first time you are able to be yourself, because I do not know you, you can feel safe that I will not shame, judge or have any preconceptions about you.

By speaking your story; your truth, you can hear what it sounds like. You may not like what you hear, so it may take a few sessions to feel safe and trusting to do this.