Graham Arnold

My work days for private practice, and therefore my availability, is normally limited to a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. My latest appointment is for 7.00pm.

My approach is to encourage clients to closely examine their past in order to expose the lasting effects of formative experiences that may be hiding in their unconscious mind, potentially having an unhelpful impact upon them and their relationships in the present.

I am a qualified and experienced counsellor and psychotherapist, with a deep appreciation for the spiritual dimension of life, and a firmly embedded belief in the importance of our personal story being told and genuinely listened to as we grapple for life’s meaning.

I have spent many years working with and alongside older people, both in community development and through the work of a national older people’s charity. This has given me valuable insights into living in later life, including an understanding that depression and anxiety are not an inevitable part of getting older, but conditions which can be treated by talking therapy just as effectively as they can be for an adult of any age.

Developing a strong working alliance with you as my client is an integral and essential factor towards you being able to benefit from therapy. This is why providing a safe, confidential environment and forming a trusting, respectful, non-judgmental relationship with you is key.

I work with adult clients from a wellness centre in Biddenden which has good parking facilities, and is well placed to serve the immediate community, as well as surrounding villages and towns. Depending on the circumstances, I am also willing to work with a client in their own home. Either way, I would be open to working with you on an open-ended or fixed-term basis.

I would be pleased for you to contact me to arrange an initial session in which for you to describe the challenges you face, and for us to decide between us whether counselling is right for you, and whether we will be able to work effectively together.

In the first instance I would normally arrange an initial, no obligation session with you in which for us to explore together whether therapy is going to be helpful to you. If we agree to progress further, it would be with a commitment to a minimum of 5 further sessions, though we would review together in session 5  whether to end with session 6, or to continue further. In that event, we would either extend the agreement for another 6 sessions, or we would leave the arrangement as open-ended, with the expectation of me being given a minimum of 1 week's notice to finish so that we both know when the ending session is to come.

I like to allow ourselves up to 2 hours for our initial session together. First and foremost this is to ensure you have plenty of time in which to describe the issues which are prompting you to seek therapy, and for me to decide whether I think I'm the right person to be able to help you. It also allows us sufficient opportunity in which to exchange quite a bit of information, including going through the therapy agreement together, before you then go away to consider whether you are able to commit to the work involved at this time.