Liz Dean-Haskey

I am currently fully booked (December 2024) and not taking on new clients at the moment. 

Hi there. I’m Liz and I am a humanistic counsellor working with young people in the age group 13-26. As a humanistic therapist, I offer a safe, warm, respectful, and friendly approach.

I will believe in your ability to think for yourself, to grow, and heal. I can help you to explore any aspect of your life that you want to bring to therapy. All of your unique needs and experiences are valid and welcome in our sessions. Taking a non-discriminatory, LGBTQ+ affirmative approach is fundamental to my work. This means I will listen with an open-mind and without judgement.

I do not believe anyone is ‘broken’ or ‘needs fixing’, I believe we are often hurt and we need help healing. I can provide a safe and supportive space to help healing occur, often this focuses around the relationship we have with ourselves. I'm authentic and compassionate and I'll support you as you explore and bring about the changes you want to make. 

In my work as a counsellor, I am privileged to work alongside you to find a unique way forward through whatever issue brings you to counselling. This might be because you are feeling low, lonely, stressed or anxious, you may be questioning your sexuality and/or identity, you may be self-harming, being bullied or you may be having relationship problems or making sense of relationship tensions around you. All of your unique needs and experiences are valid and welcome.

At the start of our work, we'll talk about what you'd like to get from counselling. This might be something very specific but equally you may not be very clear. It's also fine if you don't know what you would like to achieve, or don't want to work with any kind of goal in mind. I want to be as useful to you as possible, so we will regularly review how you feel our sessions are going.

I'll offer you a safe and confidential space. I bring my real self to our work and I'll be alongside you, to notice, reflect, listen, empathise and on occasion, gently challenge.

I would usually suggest we work with each other up to 24 sessions and review the work regularly. It may be that 6 sessions feels enough and right for you, it maybe you want to work longer term. I feel it’s important to be flexible as to how the work develops, however, placing boundaries around the counselling is fundamental to its effectiveness.

I believe that techniques are not as important as the relationship in therapy and I aim to ensure that you feel safe with me and comfortable to explore anything you wish.

Our work may involve helping you access, express and articulate emotions, it might be about helping you make sense of experiences that are distressing and/or confusing.

Often it's so valuable just to talk, to hear yourself out loud and be heard and understood by someone else. If it's useful to you, we might sometimes work with creative methods, like clay work, drawing or writing, or we might explore how you experience emotion in your body, as well as the mind. 

Alongside my private practice I also co-ordinate and deliver training courses for Health & social care practitioners on health & well-being/ behaviour change topics. I have over 20 years of directly working with and supporting young people in various roles in youth work, mentoring, sex & relationships education and drugs & alcohol education.  

I offer a free initial 30 minute meeting which can be in person, on the phone or online. Choosing the right therapist for you is important and this first chat will give us an opportunity to get to know each other. You can ask me any questions you may have.

I will invite you to say something about what has brought you to counselling and what you hope to get out of it, understanding that it might not be easy to talk about the things that really matter straight away and that you may not yet have a clear sense of what/where you want to go…

Together we can decide if what I offer might be suitable for you at this time. There is no obligation to continue if things don't feel right – but if we do, we can look to arrange a first counselling session.

If you are a parent/carer of an under 16 year old looking for counselling for your teenager I  would suggest we have the 30 minute free initial consultation together (either in person or phone/online) and then I meet your son / daughter for their first session which would be a paid session. You would be welcome to attend the first part of the first session as part of contracting and introductions however the rest of the counselling would just be myself and the young person.  We will talk about confidentiality and safeguarding in this first initial meeting. 

I work from a lovely therapy room in the high street of Shoreham-by-sea and also online via zoom. Please contact me for more information.

Unfortunately, the therapy room I am currently using is upstairs and is not accessible for wheelchair access. Online sessions are available.