Joanna Marshall

Are you feeling overwhelmed, sad, anxious, depressed or questioning aspects of your life? Are you feeling low in self-confidence or self-esteem?

Are you looking for someone to talk to, someone who will listen, someone who will ask questions to help you work things through? Someone to help you clarify and start to understand your thoughts, feelings and behaviours and find a way to move forward?

My name is Joanna and I am an experienced, trained and registered counsellor. I am down to earth and approachable.

I believe counselling shouldn’t be about jargon and it shouldn’t be complicated, even when life is complicated. It’s about offering you time in your week to talk confidentially to a professionally trained person about what is going on for you. It’s about having someone to talk with who will listen without judgement and who won’t say ‘what you need to do is…or don’t be silly’.

Maybe it’s something from the past which is impacting on your life now, maybe it is something in the here and now, or maybe worries about the future? I can help you to work through it.

I trained as an Integrative Counsellor – this means that I was trained in a number of approaches and using my learning and experience can offer you mixture of these in our work together depending on your needs. One size definitely does not fit all.

During a session it might be that we explore your thoughts or behaviours using CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy); relationships using Psychodynamic Theory; feelings using Person Centred Counselling; or potential solutions to a problem using Solution Focussed Therapy.

I may offer you some practical tools or strategies to try between sessions, but you are the expert on you and I will not tell you what do or think.

Alongside my private practice, I work on a self-employed basis as a counsellor for a charity which supports those who have experienced domestic abuse/violence or family violence. I was previously employed as a counsellor in a residential setting where the majority of clients had experienced adverse experiences in their childhood or trauma as adults. As part of my role, I also developed and delivered a weekly self-esteem group.

The most important thing in counselling is to feel comfortable with the person you are going to be working with. To help you do this I offer an initial 30-minute phone call free of charge. This gives you a chance to tell me what has prompted you to look for a counsellor and to ask any questions you may have. It also gives me the opportunity to ask you a few questions which helps us both to assess whether I am the most appropriate person for you. The call is completely without obligation to book further paid sessions with me, and I will not expect you to make a decision there and then.

If you think I might be the right counsellor for you, feel free to call or send a message so that we can arrange the initial chat on the phone.