Madeleine Bentley

I run my practice on Tuesday and Wednesday daytimes, 8.45am-6pm. Sessions currently available, please contact me for details. 

Hello. I am an experienced BACP accredited counsellor based in Heworth, York. 

I provide one-to-one therapy for younger adults who are finding life, family, relationships, work and study difficult for a wide range of reasons. I am particularly experienced at working with 18-40 year olds, university students and people with autism.

Clients often come to see me for the following reasons:

• Feelings anxious, depressed or overwhelmed. Wanting to better understand these feelings and consider how to improve things.

• Support with past and current adverse experiences such as bullying, separation, loss, illness and family problems. 

• Dealing with life transitions including finishing university, leaving home, work, study and career changes.  

What is counselling?

Counselling is a confidential conversation that fully focuses on you and whatever is causing you concern.  It is a place where you can talk about your experiences, your thoughts and feelings, how you feel about yourself and others. We can give attention to whatever you need to. 

Exploring your concerns with a trained counsellor can help you to make sense of difficult experiences, know more about yourself and gain fresh insights and perspectives on your current difficulties.  Often understanding ourselves better, by first being understood, means more choices about how we live become available to us. And then change become possible.  

Am I the right counsellor for you?

Finding a therapist that you feel comfortable working with is the key to successful therapy. 

If you have read a few of these directory listings you might be thinking counsellors all sound pretty similar. This is where an initial conversation can  be helpful to give you a sense of personality, energy, pace and tone. 

I offer an optional free 15 minute Zoom or phone conversation so that we can start to talk and decide whether we might work well together.  You are welcome to email me any questions you have about counselling so you have the information you need. 

My approach

There are many different types of counselling available. I offer person-centred counselling. A core idea of this approach is that our unique experience of life offers us a crucial guide to what we need in life. Essentially we can draw on our experiences, trust our instincts and make decisions helps us to live fulfilling lives. However, we can lose touch with what we need. Critical voices (often including our own) and difficult life experiences can affect our sense of self-worth and our ability to trust what we know. 

My aim is to help you hear your own voice more clearly.  I won't tell you what to do. Other people's advice is generally not what we need when we are feeling anxious or unhappy; we need to be understood. When we are fully heard this can help us to listen to ourselves again and then consider fresh approaches to life. 

My role is to listen to you carefully.  I will step in, as needed, to help you explore and understand how you are feeling, find out what is getting in the way of where you want to be and work with you to find new ways forward. 

How long will I need to have counselling?

This will depend on a few things including how you are currently feeling, what is happening between sessions and where you want to be after your counselling. 

Most people start to feel better after a few sessions of counselling. More significant, lasting changes can take longer. 

Where will I have my counselling?

My welcoming practice is based in my home in Heworth. It is approximately 1.5 miles from York city centre, University of York and York St John University campuses. It is well located for York city centre, Burnholme, Derwenthorpe, Heslington, Huntington, New Earswick, Osbaldwick & Tang Hall. There is plenty of free parking in the street and the number 9 and Coastliner buses stop near by. 

I am interested in counselling with you - what is the next step?

Use the contact form to let me know a bit about yourself and your availability on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I'll take you through what happens next below.

​After you contact me

I will reply within 24 hours. I will let you know about sessions I have available so you can decide whether starting counselling with me might be possible. I also will send you some further information about my counselling practice and offer you a free 15 minute Zoom or phone conversation.

​Initial Zoom or phone conversation

This is for you to get a sense of what it is like to talk to me. You can ask any questions you have about counselling. ​I will be interested to hear what has brought to think about having counselling at this point. I will let you know whether I think I will be able to work with the issues that you want to bring to counselling. If we both want to go ahead, we can arrange a first session date.

Your first session

Your first counselling session will be an opportunity for you to tell me more about yourself and what is going on for you at the moment. We will then look at how you would like to use your counselling sessions and what you hope to gain from therapy.

If you are not sure about what to focus on in counselling we can explore this together. 

What can I talk about in counselling?

You can talk about whatever you want to, there is no right or wrong with counselling.

Most people usually come to counselling because something is wrong and will focus on what is causing them difficulty or distress. This might be your relationships with others, recent life events, your academic study or job. 

You may want to talk about your current feelings or less specific things; your fears, disappointments and failures. You might be starting to notice problematic patterns in your life about how you relate to yourself and in your relationships others; we can explore these too.

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