Michelle Wood

As an Integrative Counsellor, I draw from three theoretical approaches, Person Centred (PCT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Transactional Analysis (TA) in my work. I also utilise creative interventions as led by individual clients.

I work with the person's life experiences to help them make meaning of their present and past experiences. This helps to validate their felt responses and we can also look at which coping behaviours are serving them well and what areas they would like to grow in.

I work with Young People (11+), Adult and Couples to help them navigate difficulties they are facing to improve their overall mental health and wellbeing.

The first session involves going through an agreement together so that we both agree a way of working. We discuss your background, your difficulties and hopes. We also use an assessment form to get a starting point and identify your general wellbeing which we will review after 6 sessions.

Please email to advise me what days and times you are ideally looking to book counselling for stating whether you would like face to face or online sessions.

I work with young people, adults and couples. 

I am trained as an Integrative Counsellor, combining three theoretical approaches. A Person Centred approach being the basis of my work. This means that sessions are client led, we take things at your pace and focus on what's important to you on a week by week basis as the expert of your own life. The use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy helps us to identity the links between your internal thought process, your felt responses both emotionally and physically and your behaviours/activities. The use of Transactional Analysis is useful is beneficial in looking at relationships, personally and professionally to identify healthy interactions and boundaries both internally and with other people. 

I also offer creative interventions to increase self-awareness and as an aid in externalising feelings and potentially seeing things from different perspectives. These include, drawing, writing, using a Sandtray, working with clay or other creative tools together. 

All interventions and approaches are options in finding what your preferred way of working is, which we will discover together, as you will always have a choice and I will be led by what you need.

Perhaps self-defeating, learned behaviors are impacting you? It is possible to change your perspective and responses, if that is part of the goals you set for yourself? I will be eager to explore and get to know your internal world and what's important to you. 

I will sit with you and build a therapeutic relationship that can enable you to express your feelings, paying attention to what you need and think. You are unique, with an individual set of experiences, circumstances and history. These inform how you see and feel about yourself and also how you would respond to challenging situations and relationships. Together we can explore how you can choose to respond rather than reacting from automatic patterns which stem from the past and result in potential unhelpful outcomes. 

It is beneficial to arrange an initial brief telephone call to discuss your individual situation and needs. I can answer questions around what you might expect from counselling and say more about the way I work. This will enable us both to know if we will be well suited to working together. 

Our initial assessment session will be a little more paper heavy as we can go through an agreement and assessments which give us a starting point in our work. We then aim to do a review every 6 weeks to check that we are making progress.

Thereafter subsequent sessions will be based on what you need to focus on each week.