Rob Lake

I currently have availability on Wednesdays, Thursday mornings and Friday mornings.

We all have times when we feel life is not the way we would like it to be. Relationships, work, big life events like serious illness, losing a loved one, redundancy or retirement; or issues and events like climate change, politics or the general state of the world - all these can get us down, and sometimes make us feel we’ve lost our way. The voice inside us that tells us there’s hope and something to look forward to can become very faint; we may hear it but not know what it’s saying; we may stop hearing it altogether.

My approach to counselling starts with a belief that you can get back in touch with that voice. We can work together to listen to what it is saying so that you can change things in your life you want to change, come to terms with things that can’t be changed, and see your way forward more clearly.

I don't think in terms of 'issues' or 'problems' that bring people to counselling. I just start with you - what's important for you, what questions you're asking, and where you want to go in your life.

As your counsellor my job is to listen, to do my best to understand, to see things from your perspective – and above all to have faith in you; to believe that you know what is best for you and that you can find a way through what is troubling you.

Counselling gives you an opportunity to explore what’s going on underneath the day-to-day busyness that occupies our minds most of the time. What do you really want and need? What’s right for you? How do other people and the rest of the world fit into that?

I’m trained in psychosynthesis – an approach to counselling that aims to integrate what can feel like different parts of ourselves (e.g. our ‘work self’ and our ‘life self’), and which stresses our connections with other people, the wider world and the mystery of life. As a counsellor I work with you to help you find meaning, balance and clarity. I hold theory lightly in the background, and put your life and experience in the foreground – your thoughts, feelings, anxieties, frustrations, hopes and aspirations.