Melanie Jones

I work between 8am and 6pm on weekdays and can be flexible within those hours.  An important note: I am working entirely online at the moment, via Zoom or Skype. The Oxford House address is for correspondence only, although on rare occasions I will rent a room there for one-off face-to-face sessions, having had a practice room there before the pandemic.

I originally qualified as an integrative therapist in the mid-90s, and subsequently in CBT in 2012.  I am a BACP accredited practitioner as well as a BACP accredited therapist.  I appreciate the collaborative and pragmatic approach of CBT, but also feel the richness of integrative approaches brings so much more to therapy.  As I work privately, I am able to respond to the needs and preferences of individual clients, and (I hope!) bring in the best of what a number of models has to offer.  

I have also worked as an executive coach since 1997 (accredited at Master Practitioner Level by Association of Coaching). Since 2008, I have worked as an executive coach at Oxford Said Business School on many of their open and custom programmes, as well as with private coaching clients, which gives me another angle on some of the issues clients bring. 

What clients can expect from me is the opportunity to explore their concerns and to work not just towards understanding how they feel, but also how they think - and what they do in response to those thoughts and feelings (that's the CBT bit) - with a view to finding alternative, healthier and more constructive options.  I hope that my clients feel genuinely cared for and able to bring any issue to our sessions without ever feeling judged; I'm told that that my style is warm and empathic: I do know that I'm equally willing to challenge when it's necessary.  I also believe that bringing humour into therapy (when appropriate, obviously... ) can be a very positive thing, even when things seem very bleak.

First sessions are about information-gathering/risk-assessing and, perhaps most importantly, an opportunity for the client to decide if the 'chemistry' is right. I believe that, irrespective of the model used, the relationship between client and therapist is key to a successful outcome. New clients often like to hear about how CBT works and how we might work together.  This might be a more or less protocol-driven version of CBT, depending on client preference. We will discuss what the client hopes to get from therapy and how they will know if it is helping them: I think it's essential to check in regularly to ensure that clients are finding therapy worthwhile.