Gabriela Alama

At the moment, I offer online sessions, and I have availability on Monday, Thursday and Friday mornings, between 10am and 1pm.

My counselling approach is person-centred, which means that the process is led by the client, who is encouraged to feel emotionally safe to express their authentic feelings, thoughts and needs, in an accepting and nonjudgmental space. This in turn will create the conditions for building more agency, awareness and understanding of available possibilities and directions in your life.

During the counselling sessions, you might choose to explore present difficulties you are dealing with as well as past experiences which might have left an impact on your development. You are free to direct the session in any area you wish to explore.

You might start counselling with a clear specific goal in mind or you might consider it because of vague feelings of wanting to change things in your life. You might be going through a challenging time or you might wish to develop and build up on your emotional skills. You might be experiencing low mood, anxiety, going through a loss or a difficult change, have difficulties in your relationships or simply feel overwhelmed by life. 

Whatever your case might be, our sessions together will offer you a safe space in which you can focus on your needs and your inner experience, which in turn will help you bring about the change you want. Getting support to overcome difficult moments is part of our human experience, and my role will be to be by your side in your journey towards building resilience and rediscovering your strengths.

One of the most important aspects in my work is creating a safe and authentic therapeutic relationship. This is essential in order for you to experience openness and self-acceptance, both necessary conditions for change. 

Throughout our work together, we will regularly review its progress, in order to ensure that your needs and preferences are met.

Although my approach is mainly person-centred, sometimes concepts from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Transactional Analysis, Psycho dynamic theory and Attachment Theory might be useful in understanding your experience and exploring avenues of change.

Before our first session, we can have a free 15-minute call, in which we can briefly talk about your needs and goals in counselling.

In the first session, we will go together through an assessment - a few questions which will help us understand your needs and focus our further work together.  We will discuss  boundaries and practical aspects of counselling.

This will also be a good opportunity for you to ask any questions you might have about our work together.