Melanie Haggarty

At present, I can offer 50 minutes sessions in various formats. This can be on-line, by telephone or face to face at The Practice Rooms, Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Please contact me if there is anything about the format you wish to discuss.

I am a counsellor who uses the model of Humanistic counselling which has been based on Transactional Analysis (TA). 

The difference I can bring to the sessions alongside the knowledge gained from the counselling course is my background in mental health nursing. I have been working for the NHS for over 25 years. It has provided me good foundations in working with therapeutic relationships with individuals and their families or significant others.

It means I have worked with many people before who have struggled with various different types of mental health conditions. Although, moving away from labels and diagnostic tools, I prefer to work with what the person brings, their struggles, their strengths and what it is they are wishing to work on. 

It's not always easy to make the decision to try counselling. However, positive change can come about from time and protected space for exploration.

I can offer on-line, telephone or face to face sessions. At present, there is less availability during the hours of 9am-5pm on a Monday to Thursday due to my other commitments. 

Once the sessions begin, I would like to review after the 6th session to see if there is anything we need to re-contract on, in regard to the goals or aims of accessing the counselling. If, we both agree we can continue for another 6 sessions.

Within the work together, I may draw on other strategies or tools to help gain an understanding of what and how an individual processes the world around them. For example, using a cognitive behavioural template, psychoeducation and setting goals / tasks to trial in between sessions. 

I would aim for an Adult to Adult therapeutic relationship, which means we would be interacting as equals. I would be moving away from being the person holding the reins as you are the expert of you, so it is a exploration together, whereby I am walking alongside.

It could be whilst we are working together other areas of change become evident.  We can discuss these as they arise. I will be approaching the sessions with curiosity and feel hopeful any change, however small can make a vast difference on somebody's life. 

I would be open to working with young people as I have had previous experience working with CAMHS. If this is relevant to you, the only request is for consent from a person who holds parental responsibility for the young person seeking counselling. 

If you are curious about if this is what you may want, I can offer a free 30 minute discussion to discover whether this is the right intervention for you and that it fits with me, with my knowledge and expertise.

From this, the aim would be to have a collaborative agreement of how the first few sessions will be conducted.

In the first session together, I will need to go through an assessment to collate background information and essential details.