Harriet Gardiner

I have no availability until January 2025

BACP Accredited Counsellor/Psychotherapist with over 20 years experience.

We all have times when we need some extra support, when we need a space to be heard and understood. I have worked with lots of issues, and life can bring many things that affect us deeply. As a counsellor, what seems most important is to offer a compassionate, supportive relationship where anything can be talked about.

As well as offering a space where you can talk openly, I aim to help you understand your thoughts and feelings more deeply. When we are struggling there can be so much going on inside us, a lot of which is automatic or feels hard to control. Often, we find ourselves getting stuck in the same sort of difficulties, the same sort of relationship problems, or we find it hard to recover from a particular painful experience.

Understanding ourselves can help us recognise our automatic responses and develop new ways to cope with difficulties. We can also learn new strategies to respond to and soothe our painful feelings, and skills that help us to get better support from others.

This can help us change how we respond to life's challenges,  develop better relationships, give us relief from emotional distress and ultimately create a more satisfying life.

You might

- be struggling with relationships,

- have lost someone you love,

- be feeling stressed or anxious, 

- be experiencing strong or confusing feelings

- be struggling with painful or traumatic experiences

- be feeling low, stuck, or bad about yourself and want something to change.

Being in counselling can be challenging but rewarding. Talking about these things can feel daunting, and I will be careful to work at your pace. Sometimes we need to face difficult things but, when we are feeling fragile and unsupported, this can be hard to contemplate. It is an important part of my role to provide the right balance of support and challenge. Your honest feedback about the counselling and the counselling relationship will help us to work together.

Training, qualifications & experience

I have been a qualified counsellor for over 20 years and have worked in a range of settings including education, the voluntary sector and the NHS. For many years I coordinated a women's counselling service for a local charity.

I came into this work through recognising and working with the impact of my own life experiences, and then wanted to find ways to help others.

My main qualifications are:

Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling, (Leeds Metropolitan University, 1997 - 2000)

BACP Accreditation (2010)

Integrating CBT into professional practice (15M credits, Leeds University, 2008)

Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) (Anna Freud Centre, London, 2013 - 2015) British Psychoanalytic Council Accredited DIT Therapist

Foundation in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (Nottingham Centre for Mindfulness, 2016 - 2017)

Diploma in Supervision (Leeds Centre for Psychological Development, 2018 - 2019)

BACP Senior Accreditation (2022)

I take part in several continuing professional development courses each year.

My practice follows the codes of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. I am fully insured, undertake regular supervision, and ensure I maintain professional standards with regular CPD including up to date training on safeguarding and managing risk.

I am integrative in approach, which means I draw on a number of therapeutic models in my work, depending on what feels most useful for each person. These models include psychodynamic, humanistic, attachment and mindfulness approaches.

This means my work can include looking at relationship patterns now and in the past, understanding our beliefs about ourselves and others and how they affect the way we behave, making sense of the impact of childhood relationships, noticing the parts of ourselves that are self-critical and how they affect us.

I also use mindfulness approaches to help reduce negative thinking, anxiety, low self-image and to manage and soothe painful emotions.

At the beginning we would have a 50 minute assessment to decide whether we both feel comfortable working together, and to clarify whether I can offer you what you are looking for. We would think together about how therapy could be helpful and what we would be focusing on.

This first session would cost £40.

Further sessions cost £55

Health Insurance/EAP

• BUPA

Concessions offered for

•Trainee counsellors 

• I have a couple of spaces for low cost therapy for people on low incomes.  

How do I find out more?

• Email on harrietgardiner25@gmail.com

• Call me on 07983 237310

SORRY - I DON'T HAVE ANY SPACES FOR NEW SUPERVISEES 

I offer supervision sessions face to face or by video call on Monday daytimes and Friday afternoons.  

I am a qualified supervisor with over 20 years’ experience as a counsellor/psychotherapist.

A safe and collaborative supervisory relationship is essential to support and enhance practice. I aim to provide a non-judgmental, containing and curious space for you to reflect, explore, build confidence and develop your clinical practice.

My therapeutic work is relationally based, and this also holds for my supervision approach. I aim for us to work together to develop a greater understanding of your clients, your relationship with them, and yourself as a therapist. Our relationship will, of course, be a part in that and I hope to build an alliance where we can be honest, creative, explore the parallel processes, and take risks and challenge where appropriate.

My therapeutic approach is rooted in the understanding of relational patterns - understanding the development of these and the impact they have on our current relationships and forming new ways to respond. Amongst other things, my work is informed by attachment theory, object relations theory, interpersonal neurobiology, body work and mindfulness.

I have experience of working in the voluntary sector, education, the NHS, and private practice.

I offer supervision to therapists working with adults. I charge £50 an hour for supervision.