Colin Longden

Hello, I am Colin, welcome to my profile. I hope I can help you find the solutions you are looking for. For this to happen you need to know a little about me as you will be sharing your innermost feelings and vulnerabilities with me.

I am an English man in my early 70s. I embrace and celebrate diversity and make no judgements of people based on ethnicity, age, sexual preference or any inherited belief or characteristic. I want to get to know anyone I work with as a person and understand their uniqueness as an individual.

I studied to become a qualified counsellor after retiring from my professional career. My interest in helping others in this way started during the Covid pandemic when, as a volunteer delivering food parcels, I met a lot of people who needed emotional support and either did not know how to or could not afford to access it.

As a student counsellor I discovered the power of person-centred therapy and came to understand that it is possible for someone to increase their mental resilience, become better equipped to handle the pressures and stress of modern life, and so reduce their anxiety. I found that more acute depression, often related to bereavement and other traumatic events, can also be alleviated by the clarity and self-awareness that can come from working with a person-centred therapist. 

During my studies I came to understand more about myself and the reasons for my anxieties and insecurities, relating to traumatic experiences of my own.

Below are some of the types of issues that I am familiar with:

• Anxiety

• Bereavement

• Low self esteem

• Romantic, family, work or social relationship issues

• Dissociation

• Issues related to neuro-diversity

My offer to anyone I work with is not to remove pressures and stress, which are inevitable, or to attempt to erase the traumatic events causing their grief or depression, but to help them explore, evaluate, and understand their feelings and help build their resilience as an individual.

My exposure to people who are vulnerable or non-privileged, together with my own life experiences have led me to believe that anyone who is ready to engage with the counselling process, regardless of their financial means, should be able to access it. Sadly the support systems offered by today’s society do not enable this, so I am prepared to do my own very small ‘bit’ by providing my services on a ‘pay as you can afford’ basis.

If we are to achieve your desired outcomes together, we will need to develop trust. I will take the first step towards building this by trusting you to choose to pay what you can afford for my services.

Getting started

If this approach appeals to you, please contact me to arrange an exploratory free of charge phone call so that we can decide together if I am the right counsellor for you. I will ask you to describe the nature of the issues which caused you to seek counselling, to ensure that my skills and approach are right for your needs. I will also give you the opportunity to ask any questions you have for me. I will not put a time limit on this call as it is important that we come to a good decision, but as a guide please allow 15-30 minutes.

If, after this call, we agree to work together, we will select a time and day to meet weekly for 50 minutes, and whether to meet remotely or in person.

At the end of this session, we will finalise the terms of our financial agreement, the initial number of sessions we are committing to together and how we will regularly review your progress.